PART FOUR — NINE GIRLS, NINE FIRES
The girls did not grow into one shared personality.
Rose, the oldest by eleven minutes according to hospital estimates, became serious and protective. She learned to read before the others and believed rules existed to prevent disaster.
Lily laughed loudly, climbed trees, and once brought a live frog to Sunday school.
Iris rarely spoke in groups but remembered every sentence people thought she had ignored.
Violet loved music and turned pots, tabletops, and windowsills into drums.
Daisy wanted to fix things. At seven, she dismantled Richard’s alarm clock and returned it with two pieces left over.
Jasmine organized her sisters into plays, clubs, and household rebellions.
Heather loved numbers.
Holly loved animals.
Anne, the smallest, followed Richard everywhere until she was old enough to realize she preferred running ahead.
Richard gave them the same birthday because no one knew the exact order of their births. Every year, the house became chaos.
Nine cakes were impossible, so he baked one enormous sheet cake and divided it into nine sections, each decorated differently.
Rose received books.
Preview
Lily received roller skates.
Iris asked for a lock on her diary.
Violet wanted a guitar.
Daisy wanted tools.
Jasmine requested a typewriter.
Heather asked for a calculator.
Holly wanted a puppy.
Anne wanted whatever Richard said she could not have.
Money remained scarce.
Richard repaired roofs before dawn, worked factory shifts, and washed dishes three evenings a week. He learned to sleep in fragments.
The girls learned sacrifice too early.
When the washing machine died, Rose started a jar labeled NEW MACHINE. Each sister contributed coins. Richard found the jar and cried in the garage where no one could see.
He did not want poverty to become their identity.
But he also refused to hide it through debt.
“We do not have money for that,” he told them when necessary.
He never said, “You should be grateful I adopted you.”
That sentence lived in many foster homes and adoptive families. Richard had heard adults use rescue as permanent authority.
He would not.
At fourteen, Lily shouted during an argument, “We didn’t ask you to take us!”
Richard felt the words like a blow.
He wanted to tell her what he sold.
How many nights he worked.
How many people he fought to keep them together.
Instead, he answered, “That’s true.”
Lily stopped.
“You didn’t ask,” he continued. “I chose. You do not owe me for my choice.”
She began crying.
“So you regret it?”
“Never.”
“Then why are you angry?”
“Because I’m your father and you broke curfew.”
The argument returned to the correct subject.
That became one of Richard’s greatest strengths.
He refused to turn adoption into a weapon during ordinary conflict.
But he was not a perfect father.
When Violet wanted to attend a music program in Chicago, he said no because he feared the city.
When Rose wanted to join a civil rights student group, he worried demonstrations would put her in danger.
When Jasmine dated a boy Richard disliked, he followed them once and was caught.
His daughters accused him of control.
Sometimes they were right.
“You raised us to stand,” Iris told him. “You cannot ask us to sit whenever standing scares you.”
The pendant did not exist in this story, but the lesson did.
Richard apologized.
Not immediately.
He was still a father.
But eventually.
