So, I looked into adoption. I listened while Cherie, the adoption specialist, rhymed off the process in a bird-chirpy voice of how I would “get to meet the adoptive family, get to be updated about my children, and maybe even get to visit them after!” She mentioned how I was “doing a very generous thing for a family in need!” Then she handed me a bright, glossy pamphlet with the same sort of bright, cheery information and the same sort of smiling families on the front cover that I had imagined in my head.

The babies rustled angrily in my stomach, but I ignored it. They may have wanted a life with me, but they didn’t know any better. They didn’t know that Mommy had no idea where Daddy was, and had maybe even gotten him killed through her poor choices.

When I told Tiffany about my plans to give the triplets up for adoption, she was tentatively supportive, although she clearly didn’t agree with my choice.

“I don’t know,” I overheard her saying to Kyle one day. “I feel like things come into our lives at a certain time for a certain reason. I think this happened to Alex now because she can handle it, even by herself, because it would be good for her.”

After, I had walked out the door, spurned on by a sad sort of restlessness. I’d strode without stopping to the forest nearby and kept on walking through it, directing my furious glare at the uncaring tree limbs.

It was easy for Tiffany to say that this was meant to be. She wasn’t facing raising three children alone. And yeah, sure, she and Kyle would be there for me, but would they always be there? Would they be there for every outing, every vacation, every day when I’d have endured all I could? No. No, of course they wouldn’t be, couldn’t be. They had their own lives to live.

I plunged deeper and deeper into the forest, my thoughts circling in on themselves, swooping down upon me like birds of prey. Who was I to think that I’d make a good mother? Me, who had never even given having children much thought at all. Pretty much anyone would’ve made a better parent. Tiffany and Kyle would’ve made better parents, easily, but having them as a support wasn’t the same.

Tripping over a stick and coming face-to-face with a mossy log brought me the answer: Tiffany and Kyle would make better parents. Tiffany and Kyle could be their parents. That way, I could visit them all I wanted, watch them grow up, give them a good home, good, reliable parents.

I marched out of the forest and back to Tiffany’s with the answer on my lips. And yet, when I told her, she didn’t react with the jubilant smile I’d imagined she would. Instead, she looked worried, uncomfortable.

“This is a very big decision you’re making,” she said in a small voice. “And thank you, Alex, for thinking of me. It’s a very generous offer you’re making, but I can’t take it. Not yet. Can you think about it for a week and then tell me?”

“But, Tiffany—”

She shook her head.

“One week, Combs. You have that long.”

So, with a sigh, I agreed and trudged to my room.

That night I awoke empty.

It was dark, everything was dark, made up of sensations and not sights. The quiet was oppressive, and my belly, my once-rounded belly, was shrunken and shriveled like a prune.

My babies were gone. I could feel it.

I got up and raced into a wall. Then I went the other way and hit another wall, invisible in the blackness.

I cried out, screamed, clutched at my horrible, empty sack of skin where they had been.

My babies. My three little darlings—gone, unattainable, forever. A part of me ripped away and lost.

“Please!” I cried into the dark. “Please, give them back to me! Please, I’m begging you! I’ll do anything! Please give them back to me. I can’t bear it!”

But the dark only echoed back my hopeless cries until I collapsed to my knees and then onto my back, thrashing back and forth, incoherent moans drifting out of my lips.

I awoke crying.

I clutched at my stomach and breathed a sigh of relief. Full. It was still full. My babies were still there.

It had only been a dream, thank God.

And yet, lying there in the dark, the tears continued rolling down, and the breathless fear still clutched my heart.

If that was what it was like not having my babies with me, being separated from my children, how would I be able to bear adoption even if it were with Tiffany and Kyle? What was I supposed to do?

Staring into the dark, I whispered, “Please, show me a sign. Please. I don’t know what to do. Please, show me what to do.”

Then I fell back asleep.

I awoke to tapping, a sharp “tut-tut-tut, tut-tut-tut” coming from my window.

I drew aside the curtains and found myself face-to-face with a chickadee. It cocked its head at me, blinked, and then flew off.

It looked like I’d just gotten my answer. In a daze, I flopped back onto the bed, surprised by how relieved I was at the sign I’d just seen, at Brock’s and my bird tapping on my window for my attention.

There was no denying it; I had asked for a sign, and a sign was what I’d gotten. It had revealed what I had secretly wanted anyway: to keep my children. No matter the difficulty, no matter the hardships, I needed my children to be mine. I needed to be there for them. I couldn’t take it any other way.

Tiffany was supportive and unsurprised by my change of heart.

Hugging me, she said, “I know you, Combs. I think you’re making the right decision.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

* * *

The next eight months passed better than expected. Tiffany and Kyle kept me busy, got me picking out baby names and hauled me around Ikea in a baby-furniture-buying flurry. I found out I was having two daughters and a son. I moved back into my apartment, cramming as much baby furniture into the small space as it could handle. I even got a few jobs, locating a missing wallet and a long-lost son.

And then there was Brock. Funny, that his absence was the biggest presence in my life. And yet I kept seeing him—on street corners, in malls, on passing buses just out of reach. His face haunted me, and yet whenever I approached him, he turned out not to be him at all, but strangers who were politely surprised by my interest. No matter how I searched, Brock had disappeared. Russell Snow wasn’t happy either.

He showed up one day when I was halfway out the door of my apartment.

“You,” he said, and I froze.

Nine months was a long time, more than long enough to build someone up in your head, exaggerate their features and just how bad they really were. That was what I had been sure I’d done with Russell Snow, made him out to be scarier than he really was. And yet here, face-to-face with the disturbing man, I saw I hadn’t exaggerated at all. His face really was a hard-lined, too-pale mask with eyes of dust and stretched-out lips.

“You have seen him, haven’t you?” he growled.

I stood there speechless for a minute, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

“N-no…”

His icy gaze slid to my bulging belly, and he sneered.

“Better not be lying to me.”

And then he left, leaving me trembling and fleeing back inside my apartment. As if I didn’t have enough things to worry about with my due date in a little under two weeks. Now I had to worry about Russell Snow taking out his frustration on me, due to his inability to find Brock.

Yet even as I sat there on my kitchen floor, terrified, tense hands resting on my restless belly, I smiled. Snow still hadn’t caught Brock. There was still hope, still a chance. If only I could find him…

By that night I still hadn’t ventured out of my apartment. My sleep was agitated, a series of tossing and turning and sequences of dreams. Disconnected images slipped past: Brock’s look cutting through me, his house, those cookies, those paintings. Mid-dream, I sat straight up in my bed, suddenly completely awake.

Those paintings! Of course, why hadn’t I thought of that? They could have held a clue about Brock. Hell, his whole cabin could have been chock-full of clues, and I had never thought to go back to it.

Next thing I knew, I was stumbling into some baggy sweatpants and an equally baggy sweatshirt. Then, after throwing some supplies into my backpack, including a flashlight and some granola bars, I raced out the door of my apartment.

I didn’t check what time it was; I didn’t care. With this latest revelation about Brock’s cabin, I had to go search now. This was the father of my children; it couldn’t wait. I had to find him.

My car rumbled to life unwillingly, but I set out nonetheless, driving into the dark night. A glance at my phone revealed a missed call from Tiffany (who always seemed to have a sixth sense when something big had happened) and the time: 3:47 a.m.

It didn’t matter. I flicked on the radio, and the Rolling Stones and I drove along the darkened streets, toward the cabin destination that would, hopefully, show me the light.

Getting to Nederland took longer than I remembered. Or, maybe it was just how uncomfortable everything was while pregnant. Bathroom breaks were a must almost every hour, while I kept a water bottle and a stash of snacks parked beside me the entire time. And yet still I ached; still I was bloated and hungry and thirsty, but not the normal kind. It was the kind that was perpetual, integral, something that couldn’t be fixed.

I was hardly surprised. I hadn’t had what you’d call an easy pregnancy. The first two or three months had been a whirlwind of throwing up and crying, while the next had been an endless binge-fest, which wasn’t the worst thing, except how my body had swelled so considerably that it no longer felt like mine. And yet, it had been worth it. As I drove, turning down the road of the path to the cabin, I could feel my babies’ excited kicking.

“Yes, we’re going to see Daddy’s old place,” I told them, and they kicked some more.

It was strange. Carrying these oh-so-fragile little beings within me frightened me, especially going on this potentially dangerous Daddy search, and yet it made me feel reassured, less alone.

I could do this. For my children, I had to.

Making it to the cabin was an exercise in patience. It not only took longer than I expected, but it took longer than I could have even feared. The forest was one unending black void of grass and trees and shrubs, all of which were too close to my car. I rapidly exhausted my granola bar supply, while my water met a similar, quickly finished fate.

By the time I did finally pull into the darkened dirt parking lot, I had been seriously considering turning back altogether.

But, just in time, there it was, barely visible in the pale yellow of my headlights: Brock’s cabin.

I turned off my car. I told myself I could do this.

Then I got out my flashlight, slung my knapsack onto my back, and waddled out of my car.

I walked up to the old cabin, the one with the bashed-in door from when Russell and his men had broken their way in. From when Mommy had betrayed Daddy. I stepped over the door carefully, swallowing my guilt and blinking back tears.

Here went nothing. This was my last and only chance.