Raising triplets was business as usualuntil one of them started saying things no seven-year-old should know.
Wed raised our three boys the same way, but then one day, the one in the turquoise bow tie began speaking in memories that werent his.
From the start, people joked wed never tell them apart. So we gave them bow tiesblue, red, and turquoise. 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.
Then Elithe one in turquoisestarted waking up in tears. Not from nightmares. From what he called “remembering.”
“Do you remember the old house with the red door?” he asked one morning.
We didnt. Our house had never had a red door.
“Why dont we see Mrs. Langley anymore? She always gave me mint humbugs.”
Wed never known a Mrs. Langley.
Then came the night he whispered, “I miss Dads green Roverthe one with the dented bumper.”
Wed never owned a Rover.
At first, we laughed it off as childish imagination. But Elis 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 crawling up the chimney. His brothers thought it was “brilliant.” Eli just looked sad, like hed lost something precious.
One day, while rummaging through boxes in the garage, he asked for his old cricket glove.
“You dont play cricket, mate,” I said.
“I did,” he replied softly. “Before the fall.” He touched the back of his head.
So we took him to a doctor. The pediatrician sent us to a psychologist. Dr. Berger listened carefully and said Elis memories werent just make-believe. “Some call them past-life recollections,” she explained. “Controversial, yes, but very real to him.”
I didnt want to believe it. Then Dr. Lynn, a researcher, asked Eli during a video call:
“What was your name before?”
“Danny,” he said. “Danny Carter or was it Carter? I lived in Devon. In a house with a red door.”
He described falling off a ladder while taking down a flag. Head injury. Ache. Darkness.
Days later, Dr. Lynn called. Shed found a record: Daniel Carter, Exeter, Devon. Died in 1987, aged seven. Skull fracture from a ladder fall.
The photo she sent nearly stopped my heart. The boy looked just like Eli. Same cowlick. Same eyes.
After that, Eli seemed calmer, as if closing a chapter. The drawings stopped. The odd memories faded. He went back to playing with his brothers, laughing just like before.
Then a letter arrived. No return address. Inside: a photo of a house with a red door, 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 Eli. And Dr. Lynn, whod since vanished without a trace.
Years later, when Eli was fifteen, I found a shoebox under his bed. Inside: a single marble, blue with green swirls. At the bottom, a note in childish scrawl: “For Elifrom Danny. You found it.”
When I asked where it came from, he just smiled.
“Some things dont need explaining, Dad.”
I still dont know if I believe in past lives. But I believe in Eli. In the peace he carries, the wisdom no boy his age should have, and the way he sometimes looks at the skylike hes remembering something far away.
Children come with their own stories. Sometimes those stories arent ours to understand. Only to hold.
