Raising triplets had always been chaotic but manageableuntil one of them started saying things no seven-year-old should know.
We raised them the same way, but one day, Oliverthe one in the emerald-green bow tiebegan 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 had never had a red door.
Why dont we see Miss Langley anymore? She always gave me mint humbugs.
We knew no one by that name.
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 childhood imagination. But Olivers tone wasnt playful. He spoke with eerie 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. Oliver just looked wistful, as if mourning something lost.
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 murmured. Before the fall. He touched the back of his head.
We took him to a doctor. The paediatrician referred us to a psychologist. Dr. Whitmore listened carefully and said Olivers memories werent mere fantasy. Some call it past-life recall, she explained. Controversial, yesbut real to him.
I didnt want to believe it. But then Dr. Reed, a researcher, asked Oliver during a video call:
What was your name before?
Danny, he said. Danny Carter or maybe Cartwright. I lived in Dorset. In a house with a red door.
He described falling off a ladder while taking down a flag. A head injury. Pain. Darkness.
Days later, Dr. Reed called. Shed found a record: Daniel Cartwright, Weymouth, Dorset. Died in 1973, aged seven. Skull fracture from a ladder fall.
The photo she sent nearly stopped my heart. The boy looked like Oliversame tousled hair, same eyes.
After that, Oliver seemed at peace, as if closing a chapter. The drawings stopped. The odd memories faded. He went back to squabbling with his brothers, laughing like before.
But 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 it. Miss Langley*
Wed never told anyone about Miss Langley. Except Oliver. And Dr. Reed, whod since vanished without a trace.
Years later, when Oliver 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 Oliverfrom Danny. You found it.*
When I asked where it came from, Oliver just smiled.
Some things dont need explaining, Dad.
I still dont know if I believe in past lives. But I believe in Oliver. In the quiet wisdom he carries, the way he sometimes gazes at the skylike hes remembering something far away.
Children come with their own stories. Sometimes, those stories arent ours to understand. Just to hold.
