Calla was supposed to be my wife.
Seven years ago, she was the heartbeat of our loud, chaotic home—the one who could calm a crying toddler with a song and end an argument with just a look.
That night, Mara had been eleven years old, barefoot on the side of a road, trembling so violently she could barely stand.
The police found Calla’s car near the river. The driver’s door was open. Her purse was still inside. Her coat had been carefully draped over the railing above the water.
They found Mara hours later, wandering along the roadside. Her face was empty. Her hands were blue from the cold.
She didn’t speak for weeks.
And when she finally did, she said the same thing every time.
“I don’t remember, Dad.”
They searched for Calla for ten days.
In the end, we buried her without a body.
And I was left with ten children who needed me more than I ever imagined.
“You’re staring at the peanut butter,” Mara said, pulling me back to the present.
“Am I?”
I looked down at the knife in my hand. “That’s never a good sign, is it?”
She gave me a small smile and reached for the bread. “Want me to finish those?”
“What I want,” I said, “is one normal morning where nobody sets a backpack on fire.”
From the hallway, Jason yelled, “That happened one time!”
“And that was enough!” I called back.
Mara shook her head, but there was a tiredness in her expression that hadn’t been there before.
People thought I was out of my mind for fighting for custody of those kids. My brother had said, “Loving them is one thing. Raising ten kids alone is another.”
But I couldn’t let them lose the only other parent figure they had.
So I learned everything.
Braiding hair. Cutting boys’ hair. Rotating lunches. Managing inhalers. Handling nightmares. I learned which child needed silence, and which one needed grilled cheese cut into stars.
I didn’t replace Calla.
But I stayed.
