She stopped Peter as he was preparing to leave and said, “Let me keep the babies while you work today. The sun is too harsh for little children.”
Peter hesitated at once.
His daughters were all he had left. Since Linda’s departure, he had grown fiercely protective, almost afraid to let anyone else hold them for too long. But Mama Caro’s face held only kindness.
“I will care for them like they are mine,” she said.
After a long pause, Peter nodded.
That day, for the first time in months, he worked without the twins strapped to his chest. He hated being away from them, but when he returned in the evening, he found both girls washed, fed, and asleep in Mama Caro’s arms.
From then on, she helped whenever she could.
She was not rich. In fact, she was poor herself. But some people carry wealth in their spirit, and Mama Caro was one of them. She bathed the twins, fed them, sang to them, and loved them with the tenderness of someone who understood that blood is not the only thing that makes a family.
Marie and Naomi grew up between two steady hands: their father’s worn, hardworking hands and Mama Caro’s gentle, dependable ones.
They did not attend elite private schools. Their uniforms were simple, their shoes often repaired instead of replaced, their notebooks carefully used from front to back. But Peter made sure they had what they needed. He worked hard enough to keep them in school, and at night, when he was tired to the bone, he still taught them what mattered most: be respectful, work hard, stay honest, and never look down on anyone.
The years passed. The babies became girls. The girls became strong young women.
By eighteen, Marie and Naomi had both graduated from their community school with excellent results. They had studied by candlelight during power cuts. Shared textbooks. Helped each other revise. Prayed together before exams. And when their entrance results came back, the whole house nearly burst with joy.
They had both been admitted to study medicine and surgery.
Peter held those result slips in his trembling hands and smiled so wide the girls thought he might cry from happiness.
“My daughters are going to be doctors,” he said proudly, puffing out his chest and pretending to strut like an important man. “Now I can walk through this city like a king.”
They laughed and hugged and dreamed out loud.
But later that night, when the twins were asleep, Peter sat alone on the edge of his bed, and the smile vanished.
He had no money.
Not even enough to sponsor one child through medical school, let alone two.
For a long time, he sat in silence, staring at the floor.
Then he whispered into the empty room, “After all these years… now that they have made it, I cannot even carry them the rest of the way.”
Still, he refused to surrender.
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