Chapter 6 - WHAT HIS PARENTS BELIEVED
Ruth came over the next day with Peter, Colin's father. They brought bananas and the board book Max liked. The triplets ran toward them as soon as they heard the door, and Ruth sat on the rug reading while Peter helped Leo turn pages one at a time.
Only after the children were down for a nap did we talk.
I showed them the text offering Colin Thursday afternoon. I didn't ask them to choose between their son and me. I asked them to know what had actually been said before they repeated that I was keeping the children from him.
Ruth read the exchange twice. “He told us he'd asked to take them for the whole weekend and you refused.”
“He hasn't asked me that,” I said. “We need a plan for three toddlers, not a disagreement relayed through other people.”
Peter looked toward the hallway where the children slept. He said he'd call Colin himself.
By evening, Colin had posted a wedding portrait on Facebook. It showed him crouching between Iris and Leo while Max clung to his shoulder. My hand, holding Iris steady just beyond the crop, was gone. His caption read: No matter how hard life gets, I will always show up for these three.
His aunt commented with three hearts. A friend I hadn't seen in years wrote that Colin was a wonderful father. Nobody in that photograph could see where he had been during dinner.
I wanted to post the pictures of him and Delia underneath it. For nearly an hour, I typed and deleted versions of a reply. Each one put my children in the middle of a fight they couldn't understand. In the end I closed the app.
Colin's caption kept appearing in my mind as I made dinner. I had photographs of him holding the children, and I wanted them to have those memories. I also had messages showing that he'd ignored my calls when they needed him at the wedding. Neither set of pictures could tell the whole story by itself. What worried me was how easily his polished version had become the one other people offered back to me as fact.
I called Ruth and asked her not to discuss the separation on Facebook, including in the comments under Colin's photograph. She agreed. Peter later sent one quiet message to the relatives he'd spoken to: he'd been mistaken when he said Audrey was preventing Colin from seeing the triplets. He didn't post details about the children or ask anyone to take sides.
I sent Celia and Miles a short message instead. Colin had told family members I prevented him from seeing the triplets; if they heard the same claim, I asked them not to treat it as fact. I attached my offer of Thursday afternoon, with the children's private details hidden.
Miles called. He said he would correct the lie he'd believed about our marriage with anyone he'd repeated it to. He also said he'd told Colin he wasn't going to provide an alibi for dinner. Colin had asked Miles to say they were together discussing the speeches. Miles refused because they'd spoken for perhaps five minutes before dinner and not at all during it.
“I should have asked you what was going on when I saw you leave,” Miles said.
“Yes,” I told him.
He accepted that without another explanation.
On Thursday, Colin arrived at the house thirty minutes after daycare pickup. I had picked up the children because I hadn't received an answer from him. He said his shift had run late and he'd thought I would handle it. I showed him his unread reply to my proposed plan.
“If you'll be late, tell me,” I said. “They're safe with me, but I have to know who's collecting them.”
He spent an hour playing with them while I worked at the dining table. Iris brought him the wooden shape she'd finally learned to fit into its slot. He smiled at her, and I was surprised by how much it hurt to see something so ordinary. I didn't want our children to lose a father who could make them laugh. I wanted him to stop treating that hour as proof he'd carried the rest of the week.
After he left, Ruth phoned again. She and Peter had discussed how they could help keep the triplets in daycare when my hours changed. She mentioned the money they'd been sending Colin.
“What money?” I asked.
“We couldn't cover all three places,” she said, “but since April we've sent him eight hundred and fifty dollars on the first of every month.”
I'd spent that spring picking up extra work. Colin had told me his parents couldn't afford to help, and I hadn't asked them. Ruth had no reason to know what he'd told me.
“Did he say what he used it for?” I asked.
“Daycare. That's what we wrote on every transfer.”
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I told her I needed to check our records before we said more. She offered to send her statements for those six payments, and I said yes.
At 9:14 that night, an email arrived with six transaction confirmations. The dates matched months when Colin had told me we'd have to cut back somewhere else to afford the children's care. Each payment went to his personal account. Each had the same note from his parents:
