We went inside. Susan gave us the key. Everything was empty inside, but the children moved around as if they had left yesterday. Ruby ran to the back door.
“The swing is still here!” she shouted.
Cole pointed to the wall.
“This is where Mom marked how tall we were. Look!”
Under the paint, there were indeed a few faint pencil lines.
Tessa opened the door to a smaller room.
“That’s where my bed was. I had purple curtains.”
Owen went into the kitchen and ran his hand along the counter.
“Dad burned the pancakes there every Saturday,” he said.
Later, Owen came up to me.
“Why are we here?” he asked.
I crouched down in front of him.
“Because your parents took care of you. They put the house and some money in your names. All four of you. For your future.”
Tessa asked quietly, “Even though they’re gone?”
“Even so,” I said. “And they also wrote that you must stay together. Always.”
Owen’s eyes filled with tears.
“They didn’t want us to be separated?”
“No. That was very clear.”
After a moment, he asked, “So do we have to move here now? I like our house. With you.”
I shook my head.
“We don’t have to do anything right now. This house will wait. We’ll decide later, together.”
Ruby climbed into my lap and hugged my neck. Cole spun around on the ice cream, as if that would keep him together.
“We’re still going for ice cream, right?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “We are.”
That night, after all four of them had fallen asleep in our crowded rental house, I sat back down on the couch. I thought of Lauren and Caleb. I will always miss them. That won’t go away.
But now there are four toothbrushes in the bathroom. There are four backpacks by the door. Four kids yell, “Dad!” when I walk in with pizza.
I didn’t call child protective services because I was hoping for a house or money. I didn’t know anything about that. I called because four siblings were about to be torn apart.
The rest was their parents’ last message, written quietly on a piece of paper: keep them together.
I wasn’t their first father. But I was the one who said, late one night, “All four of them.”
And when they climb on me while watching a movie, steal my popcorn, and comment loudly on the scenes, I always think the same thing.
This is what their parents wanted.
Us. Together.