Then, one night, I broke.
I called Brock — my husband’s best friend — because I didn’t know who else to call. My voice cracked as soon as he answered. I told him I couldn’t keep up. That I hadn’t slept. That I didn’t know how to do this alone.
He didn’t hesitate.
“I’m coming over,” he said.
Thirty minutes later, he was at my door with diapers, groceries, and no questions. He didn’t ask where Gale was. He didn’t pity me. He just helped.
He fed babies. Took out trash. Folded laundry. Sat up at night so I could sleep. He showed up again the next day. And the day after that.
Slowly, the chaos softened.
Brock never promised anything. He just stayed.
Love didn’t arrive in a dramatic moment. It grew quietly — in shared exhaustion, in late-night feedings, in the way my shoulders relaxed when I heard his key in the door.
By the time the triplets were four, he proposed.
They already called him Dad.
We built a life. A real one. I went back to school. We bought a modest house. The kids grew into themselves — creative, loud, kind, unstoppable. Gale became a distant memory.
Until twelve years later.
I ran into him by accident in a coffee shop.
Older. Unsteady. Desperate.
After a few strained words, he asked me for $5,000.
When I refused, he left a note on my car threatening to “tell the truth” about our past if I didn’t pay. He claimed he would say the children weren’t his — that I had cheated — that I was the reason he left.
The audacity was staggering.
We went to the police.
Gale was arrested for extortion.
When he finally spoke, his plan became clear: rewrite history so he wouldn’t be the man who abandoned his family — just the man who was “betrayed.”
But lies don’t erase truth.
My children know who stayed. They know who showed up for scraped knees, school projects, and late-night fears. They know what real love looks like.
Gale may have given them life.
But Brock gave them everything else.
And that’s the difference that matters.