Natalie was ten years old.
Claire had eight.
Hannah and Elise had six.
Morgan had four.
And Aubrey had barely two.
The girls were on the stairs with their pajamas, holding stuffed animals, watching their mother leave without understanding that her childhood was about to break forever.
Monica looked at me with dry eyes and said,
“You can’t give me the life I want, David. Adrian can. He understands what I deserve.”
Adrian was his boss.
A rich real estate developer.
The man she had been seeing behind my back for months.
Then Monica left.
And I stayed with six little girls who still needed breakfast, clean clothes, trips to school, stories before bed, cakes from birthdays, visits to the doctor, calm nightmares at two in the morning and someone who told them that the fact that their mother had left did not mean that they were impossible to love.
