It was almost two in the morning. The apartment was dark except for the lamp over the changing table. I walked into our bedroom and found Clarissa kneeling beside two open suitcases. She folded dresses with the same care she used when we packed for trips, like this was ordinary.
Then I saw her passport on the bed and knew she meant herself.
For a second I thought she was helping someone else leave.
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 reconcile what she was saying with the reality of having three new kids.
