Part Two — The Family I Chose

Twenty-eight years earlier, Rebecca was a widow raising nine children alone.

Sarah was fourteen. Maisie was twelve. The twins, Jonathan and Jonah, were ten. May and June were seven. Malcolm was five. Lucy was three, and Hailey had barely turned two. Their father had been gone for two years when I met them.

Everyone who knew me advised me to walk away.

“You’re still young,” my aunt told me. “You don’t need to take on nine children.”

Rebecca never said it that bluntly, but I could see the same fear in her eyes. She expected me to disappear as soon as the reality of her life became inconvenient.

One evening, I found her scrubbing a kitchen counter that was already spotless. From the next room came the sound of the twins arguing over a television program, followed by Lucy’s cries and Malcolm’s running footsteps.

“You don’t have to stay, Brian,” Rebecca said without looking at me. “I know this is more than you expected.”

“I know.”

She stopped moving the cloth.

“Then why are you still standing there?”

“Because you cooked dinner, and I’m washing the dishes.”

She gave me a tired smile. “You know what I mean.”

I did.

“Nine children,” she continued. “Nine different needs. Nine reasons to be exhausted. Why would you choose this?”

Before I could answer, her younger sister Marianne walked in carrying Hailey. The little girl reached for me, and Marianne placed her in my arms.

“Are you certain about him?” Marianne asked her sister.

I settled Hailey against my shoulder. She immediately rested her cheek beneath my chin.

“It isn’t a burden,” I said.

Rebecca looked at me. “What isn’t?”

I nodded toward the noise coming from the living room.

“All of this. It’s not baggage, Rebecca. It’s a family.”

The twins began shouting again. Rebecca closed her eyes, but I could see the faintest smile at the corner of her mouth.

“You see?” she whispered. “It never ends.”

“Good,” I told her. “I don’t want it to.”

We married a few weeks later in a small ceremony. There were grocery-store flowers, borrowed shoes, and nine children who could not remain clean long enough for a proper photograph.

Before the ceremony began, Malcolm tugged at my sleeve.

“Are you our real dad now?”

I knelt in front of him and fixed his crooked collar.

“A wedding doesn’t make me your father by itself. I become your dad by being here every day.”

He considered that carefully.

“Every day?”

“Every day.”

Sarah stood behind him, listening.

“Thank you for staying,” she said quietly.

After the ceremony, all nine children began calling me Dad. I understood the weight of that word, and I promised myself I would never treat it casually.

For six days, I believed our hardest days were behind us. I was wrong, but I was happy enough not to notice.