The third had been written after they were born.

It carried their names — Elias, Tristan, Juniper — and a small photograph of three newborns asleep in a single crib, head to foot, the way they slept for the first year of their lives.

The fourth was short.

I had written that I was going to stop writing.

Not because I had given up hope, I told him, but because I needed to keep every ounce of strength I had for the job in front of me, which was raising his children by myself.

I remember writing that last one.