Raising triplets was perfectly ordinaryuntil one of them started saying things no seven-year-old should know.
We raised our boys the same way, but one day, one of them began speaking about things no child his age could possibly understand.
From the start, people joked wed never tell them apart. So, we gave them bow ties: blue, red, and mint green. Three identical lads with matching scraped knees, their own secret language, and the uncanny habit of finishing each others sentences. It was like raising one soul split three ways.
But then Elijahthe one in mint greenstarted waking up in tears. Not from nightmares. From what he called *memories*.
Do you remember the old house with the red door? he asked one morning.
We didnt. Our house never had a red door.
Why dont we see Mrs. Langley anymore? She always gave me peppermints.
We didnt know anyone by that name.
Then came the night he whispered, I miss the green Buick Dad used to drivethe one with the dented bumper.
Wed never owned a Buick.
At first, we laughed it off as childhood imagination. But Elijahs tone wasnt playful. He spoke with quiet certainty, as if recalling his own past.
Soon, he started drawing. Page after page of the same place: a house with a red door, tulips in the garden, ivy climbing the chimney. His brothers thought it was well cool. Elijah just looked sad, like hed lost something precious.
One day, while rummaging through boxes in the garage, he asked for his old baseball mitt.
You dont play baseball, mate, I said.
I used to, he replied softly. Before the fall. He touched the back of his head.
So, we took him to a doctor. The paediatrician referred us to a psychologist. Dr. Berger listened carefully and said Elijahs memories werent just make-believe. Some call them past-life recollections, she explained. Controversial, yesbut real to the child.
I didnt believe it. Until Dr. Lynn, a researcher, asked Elijah during a video call:
What was your name before?
Danny, he said. Danny Kramer or maybe Cramer. I lived in Ohio. In a house with a red door.
He described falling off a ladder while taking down a flaghead injury, pain, darkness.
Days later, Dr. Lynn called back. Shed found a record: Daniel Kramer, Dayton, Ohio. Died in 1987, aged seven. Skull fracture from a ladder fall.
The photo she sent nearly stopped my heart. The boy looked like Elijah. Same cowlick. Same eyes.
After that, Elijah seemed calmer, like hed closed a chapter. The drawings stopped. The strange memories faded. He went back to playing with his brothers, laughing like before.
Then a letter arrived. No return address. Inside: a photo of a red-doored house, tulips in the garden, ivy on the chimney. A shaky signature at the bottom: *Thought youd like to see this. Mrs. Langley*
Wed never told anyone about Mrs. Langley. Except Elijah. And Dr. Lynnwhod since vanished.
Years later, when Elijah was fifteen, I found a shoebox under his bed. Inside: a single marble, blue with green swirls. At the bottom was a note in childish handwriting: *For Elijahfrom Danny. You found it.*
When I asked where it came from, Elijah just smiled.
Some things dont need explaining, Dad.
I still dont know if I believe in past lives. But I believe in Elijah. In the quiet wisdom he carries, the understanding too deep for his age, and the way he sometimes looks at the skylike hes remembering something far away.
Kids come with their own stories. Sometimes those stories arent ours to understand. Just ours to hold.
