Then I saw her passport on the bed and knew she meant herself.
Not us.
Not the babies either.
The doctors told us before we left the hospital that complications around their birth had left all three girls blind. Clarissa heard that like a sentence. I heard it like instructions I had not learned yet.
I remember staring at her in utter disbelief, trying to rectify what she was saying with the reality of having three new kids.
I asked her what she was doing.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t apologize. She didn’t even pretend she had been caught in some temporary panic.
She zipped one suitcase, stood up, and said, “I can’t do the rest of my life like this. Feedings, appointments, all of it. I’m still young. I want a life.”
I remember staring at her in utter disbelief, trying to rectify what she was saying with the reality of having three new kids.
