Ten years ago, my wife said she was going to buy milk and left me with five children, including a baby who still smelled of talcum powder and formula. She never came back. This Mother's Day, she rang my doorbell as if she'd only been gone for an afternoon—and what my oldest daughter did in that moment I will never forget.
I was in the feminine hygiene aisle at the supermarket, holding a package of sanitary pads, trying to remember which type Maya said worked best for her sisters.
A teenage girl and her mother were ahead of me in line. The girl was blushing with embarrassment. The mother leaned over, whispered something, and the girl smiled. I looked at my basket and thought: Natalie should have been the one to teach our daughters this part of life.
My third daughter, June, had started her period that morning.
I had already been through this before with Maya and then with Ellie, so I already knew the procedure: sanitary pads, chocolate, ibuprofen, something warm, something sweet, and an attitude as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
The cashier looked at my basket and then at me.
"First time?" he asked.
"Third daughter," I replied.
He picked up a box of gum.
This helps with cramps. And maybe a hot water bottle?
I took everything without arguing.
I was already used to the silent ways in which strangers perceived my life.
Single father. Five children. No wife in sight.
The math was obvious. But none of them knew about the real first night—the one where Natalie said she'd be back in 15 minutes and left me in the kitchen with a baby in my arms and four children asking when their mother would return.
Ten years ago, Natalie went out one Wednesday afternoon.
She kissed the baby on the forehead, grabbed her purse, and said she was going to buy milk. Rosie was six months old. Maya was six years old. The others were between those ages, close enough that the house was always full of fallen toys and someone calling for help with a shoe.
Fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty. Then an hour.
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