I became Uncle Elias, and then, by a kind of accident nobody plans for, Dad.
For twenty-two years, I packed three lunches every school morning, none of them the same, because Nadia hated crusts, Camille wouldn’t eat anything that touched anything else on the plate, and Zora would only eat sandwiches cut in exact diagonal halves.
I braided hair badly for the first six years, until Ms. Odetta finally took pity on all four of us and taught me properly. I worked double shifts at Reeves whenever I could pick them up, sat through fevers and stomach bugs and one truly terrifying night when Camille’s asthma flared bad enough to land us in the Thistledown Regional emergency room. I sat through science fairs, broken hearts, and at least three separate stretches where all three girls, for reasons that shifted year to year, seemed to hate me simultaneously.
