The night my brother abandoned his three newborns on my porch, something inside me shattered. I was broke, exhausted, and absolutely unprepared. Yet three tiny lives were staring up at me, waiting. A neighbor urged me to call social services. I almost did.
I didn’t sleep that first night. Between the crying, the feedings, and my own terror, I just moved from one car seat to the next, clumsy and scared, whispering promises I had no idea how to keep. Mrs. Hunter showed me how to mix formula, how to hold a bottle, how to tell when a diaper was on wrong. I made every mistake a person can make and then made them again the next day.
But as the weeks blurred into months, the apartment changed. The smell of motor oil gave way to baby powder and sour milk. My futon stayed half-broken, but the triplets learned to smile in its shadow. June’s hand never stopped reaching for mine. I never became ready, not really. I just kept showing up, broke and imperfect, until “I’ve got you” slowly turned into “we’ve got each other.”
