For 10 years, I lived with the certainty that I was sterile. I divorced the love of my life because she was pregnant with quadruplets. I called her a traitor
“What… what are your names?” Marcus asked, his throat tight.
“I’m Olivia,” the leader said, her teeth chattering. “This is Emma, Sophia, and Ava.”
“And your mother?” The question tasted like ash in his mouth.
The girls exchanged a look of profound, adult sadness. Olivia looked down at her worn-out sneakers.
“Mom isn’t here right now,” she whispered.
“Where is she?” Marcus demanded, too sharply. He softened his tone. “Where is she, sweetheart?”
“She’s… she’s in ‘time-out’,” the youngest one, Ava, piped up.
“It’s called jail, Ava,” Olivia corrected her sister, her voice hard. “She’s in the County Jail.”
The world tilted on its axis. Marcus gripped the door handle.
“Why?”
“She took some medicine from the pharmacy without paying,” Olivia said defiantly, lifting her chin. “Emma had bronchitis. She couldn’t breathe. Mom said she’d pay them back when she got her check, but the security guard called the police.”
Marcus felt bile rise in his throat.
“Frank,” he said, staring straight ahead, tears blurring his vision for the first time since he was a child. “Cancel the dinner. Cancel the Japanese investors. Cancel everything.”
“Sir?”
