Everything seemed normal raising our tripletsuntil one of them started saying things no seven-year-old should know.
We brought them up the same way, but one day, one of them began speaking of things that left us stunned.
From the start, people joked wed never tell them apart. So we gave them bow ties: blue, red, and emerald. Three identical lads with identical scrapes, their own secret language, and the uncanny habit of finishing each others sentences. It was like raising one soul split into three bodies.
Then Elithe one in emeraldstarted waking in tears. Not from nightmares. From what he called memories.
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 mint humbugs.
We didnt know anyone 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 childish imagination. But Elis tone wasnt playful. He spoke with quiet certainty, as if remembering 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 brilliant. Eli just looked sad, like hed lost something precious.
One day, while I rummaged through boxes in the garage, he asked about his old cricket glove.
You dont play cricket, mate, I told him.
I did, he murmured. 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 Elis memories werent ordinary make-believe. Some call them past-life recollections, she explained. Controversial, yesbut real to the child.
I didnt want to believe it. Then Dr. Lynne, a researcher, asked Eli during a video call:
What was your name before?
Danny, he said. Danny Foster or Foster. I lived in Kent. In a house with a red door.
He described falling off a ladder while putting up a flag. A head injury. Pain. Darkness.
Days later, Dr. Lynne called. Shed found a record: Daniel Foster, Canterbury, Kent. Died in 1987, aged seven. Skull fracture from a ladder fall.
The photo she sent nearly stopped my heart. The boy looked like Eli. Same grin. Same eyes.
After that, Eli seemed calmer, as if closing 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 house with a red door, a garden of tulips, ivy covering the chimney. A shaky signature read: Thought you might like this. Mrs. Langley
Wed never told anyone about Mrs. Langley. Except Eli. And Dr. Lynne, 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 handwriting: 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 skyas if remembering something far away.
Children come with their own stories. Sometimes those stories arent ours to understand. Only to hold.
