Jordan Fox’s boots crunched on the dry, fallen leaves as he pushed his baby stroller through the gates of the Manhattan cemetery. The landscape was littered with wilted flowers and half-burnt candles, the air sharp and cold as the wind howled through the row of trees. Today marked the first anniversary of his wife Kyra’s death, and Jordan was bringing their triplets to visit her grave.
“We’re going to see Mama,” Jordan whispered to baby Alan, one of his triplets, who was perched on his hip. Alan’s siblings, Eric and Stan, lay quietly in the stroller, their little eyes fixed on the sky.
Upon reaching Kyra’s grave, Jordan was taken aback by the presence of an older man standing near the tombstone. The man was adjusting his Irish cap as he lingered by the epitaph, which read: A twinkle in our eyes & hearts is now on the skies — In Loving Memory of Kyra Fox.
Jordan’s heart raced with curiosity and confusion. He had never seen the man before. Who was he, and why was he near Kyra’s grave?
“Amen,” the stranger muttered, finishing the sign of the cross. Then he turned to face Jordan, his eyes lighting up as he raised his hand in greeting before quickly withdrawing it when he noticed the babies.
Jordan’s brows furrowed as he approached. “Who are you?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m offering you $100,000,” the man said, his voice urgent. “I’ll give you more if you need. Just give me the babies.”
Jordan’s shock intensified. The man introduced himself as Denis, claiming to be Kyra’s “old friend” from Chicago, someone Jordan had never heard of before.
“Nice to meet you, Denis,” Jordan said cautiously. “I don’t think we’ve met. What’s going on here?”
Denis hesitated, glancing at the babies before speaking again. “Can I see them?” he asked softly.
Jordan instinctively tightened his hold on Alan, not ready to trust this stranger. But Denis pressed on, his gaze lingering on the children.
“They’re beautiful,” Denis murmured. “Sweet little cinnamon rolls. They have my nose, my eyes, and chestnut hair. And those lashes, I had them when I was little.”
Jordan’s confusion deepened, but then Denis said something that left him speechless.
“I’m their real father,” Denis claimed. “And I’ve come to take them.”
“Excuse me?” Jordan exclaimed, his mind racing in disbelief. “What do you mean, ‘real father’? What are you talking about?”
Denis insisted, repeating that he was the father of the triplets. He claimed he had made a mistake in the past and needed to correct it. He offered Jordan a large sum of money to hand over the children.
“Listen, old man,” Jordan snapped, trying to ignore the rising anger. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. These are my kids, and no one is taking them from me.”
But Denis didn’t back down. He began mentioning intimate details about Kyra that shook Jordan to his core: her love of disco, her favorite French dishes, a burn scar on her thigh, and her peanut allergy. The more he spoke, the more Jordan became alarmed.
“I know everything about your wife, Jordan,” Denis continued. “I want to correct my past mistakes before it’s too late. These children belong with me.”
“Stop it!” Jordan shouted. “You don’t get to talk about my wife like that! How do you know all of this?”
Denis’s tone softened, his eyes growing more intense. “Kyra… She wasn’t always the person you thought she was. I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth. And I’m offering you money to give me the children. You’ve raised them for years, but you’ve still got your life ahead of you. You’re young and have so much to live for. Let me have them. They’re mine.”
Jordan’s head spun. He couldn’t process what he was hearing. Was everything about his life with Kyra a lie? He couldn’t bear to think about it, but Denis’s words echoed in his mind, particularly about the burn scar on Kyra’s thigh.
Denis handed Jordan his business card and walked away, leaving him with more questions than answers. Jordan didn’t know what to believe, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
Later, as he drove home, the weight of Denis’s words became unbearable. His mind raced back to the night Kyra died—a night filled with unanswered questions and the growing realization that Kyra had hidden things from him.
Jordan thought about their first meeting in 2016 when Kyra had come into the bar where he worked. He had been immediately smitten with her, though she never seemed to notice him in that way. But after a few visits, their connection grew. Eventually, they began dating, and it wasn’t long before Kyra told him she was pregnant with triplets. She pressured him to marry her, and he agreed, eager to start a family.
But as their relationship deepened, Jordan began to notice strange gaps in Kyra’s story. No one from her family came to their wedding, and when he asked about it, she said they were all dead. He never pressed further, believing everything Kyra told him. Now, he wondered if it had all been a carefully constructed web of lies.
He recalled the night she had died—how she told him she was at a party but never came back. Her phone had died, and Jordan couldn’t reach her. Hours later, he got the call from the morgue. It turned out Kyra had died in a car accident, the result of a drug overdose. Jordan had been left to care for her children alone, not knowing the full truth of her past.
Now, faced with Denis’s revelation, Jordan wondered if he had been deceived all along. The more he thought about it, the more confused he became. The babies, whom he had raised as his own, were not his biological children. They were the result of a past Kyra had hidden from him—a past filled with uncertainty and mistakes.
Despite his shock and anger, Jordan couldn’t bear the thought of losing the children he had come to love as his own. As he stared at their tiny faces, he knew he could never abandon them.
He called Denis back, telling him that no amount of money could change his decision. “A father isn’t defined by biology. It’s about who raises them, who loves them,” Jordan said firmly. “These are my kids. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Denis, defeated, agreed to let them stay with Jordan. It was a bittersweet victory, as Jordan realized that the family he had built with Kyra was not what he thought, but he would continue to be the father these children needed. The truth had come at a painful cost, but in the end, it was his love and commitment to them that truly mattered.
