Still, they celebrated. Pink streamers, handmade signs, bottles of sparkling juice—twins came home to confetti and light. He promised Lucy they’d try again. She, who knew the weight behind his longing, agreed without hesitation. Her love came without conditions. She carried his hopes as her own.
A year later, another pregnancy. Another set of twins. More girls. The doctor explained Lucy carried a gene making twins likely. Lucy marveled, calling herself “a miracle machine.” Justin chuckled, but inside a quiet dread grew. A boy still hadn’t come, and his hope hardened.
They kept trying. Year after year, Lucy gave birth to twins—until the last pregnancy, when she conceived quadruplet girls. Five pregnancies. Twelve daughters.
By the last pregnancy, Lucy had grown smaller. Her bones weakened. Her energy dimmed. And Justin, despite his love, began to feel the dream mocking him with every soft pink blanket.
He hadn’t meant to drift. In the early years, he’d been devoted—gentle, attentive, proud. But with each new birth, the noise grew louder, the days more chaotic. He became a man of checklists and chores, surviving until even Lucy barely recognized the man beside her.
Now, all he saw were numbers: diaper costs, school supplies, rising rent, future weddings. He lay awake thinking about tuition, braces, prom dresses. Twelve girls, gigantic bills—and his dream of a son still unfulfilled. He resented settling for this life.
At twenty-nine, he felt ninety. The traditional life he’d once thought magical with Lucy had turned suffocating. Working three dead-end jobs, watching dreams dry up while laundry piled high and someone always needed something. This wasn’t life—it was a sentence he wanted to escape.
He’d wanted a son—not just a child, but a mirror to polish clean. A boy to lift from the wreckage of his bruised childhood, to raise with gentleness where he’d known rage. But instead, he’d been swallowed by a life he never imagined: tea parties, frilly socks, a chorus of little voices that wore on him. Somewhere between the second and fifth pregnancy, the dream curdled.
What scared him most wasn’t the noise or the bills—but the terrifying clarity that this was it. That he’d spend the rest of his life working himself into dust for a life he never chose. So, at twenty-nine, he chose himself instead.