"Esmee, Savannah, Claudia, could you please come down to the living room?" Rita asked, opening the triplet's bedroom door. "Your dad and I have something to discuss with you."

"Coming Mom." The triplets replied in unison, bounding out of their bedroom and racing each other down the hall. Rita sighed. She was really going to miss them. With what was left of her energy, she followed her daughters down to the living room, where they had already bounded on top of the couch. Jonathan, her soon to be ex-husband, sat in his usual spot across from them, playing on his phone.

"Is everything okay, Mom?" Esmee, the oldest triplet asked, noticing Rita's worn out expression.

"Your dad and I," She started, elbowing Jonathan hard to get his attention. "We have decided that we do not love each other any more, and that it would be best for both ourselves and you three, our precious daughters, for us to stop living together." The silence that hung in the air after her words was so heavy, it made the sound of her daughters' breathing sound like music.

"What do you mean, you will no longer live together?" Claudia, the youngest asked, her voice riddled with sadness.

"It means, Claudia, that your mother and I will live in separate houses, and you will have to split your time between those houses instead of having to hear us arguing." Jonathan said as Savannah started to burst into tears.

"But why?" She asked, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Because we think that it is what is best for you, and for your happiness." He replied. "We know you hear us arguing, even when you are in a different room. Our last argument was over who misplaced the dish sponge, and it went on for several hours. We don't want you thinking that is what a healthy relationship looks like, because it isn't."

"Who is leaving?" Esmee asked, shaking with sobs.

"Your father is." Rita replied sadly. "And he is taking you with him."

"Why?"

"Because he has a better job than I do." She replied, the pain in her heart growing ever stronger.

"Will we be staying here in New York?" Savannah asked her father.

"No, we will be moving out to California. I have a good job opportunity out there and I cannot afford to not go, even for the comfort of my family." Jonathan said coldly.

"When?"

"In three days."

The piercing wail from all three of the triplets that broke the sad silence was so loud, Rita was sure that her long dead mother heard it.

"I know that this is going to be a huge change for you, it is for all of us." She said, trying to comfort her distraught daughters.

"Will we ever see you again?" Esmee asked, wiping a tear from her eyes with her tiny hands.

"I expect so." Rita replied, taking each of her daughters' hands. "And I want you to remember, that no matter where each of us are, whether or not we can see each other, I love you so much that not even the number of stars in the sky times three thousand can equate." She squeezed their hands gently. "You will never be far from my thoughts, and I will do everything I can to see you again."

Apparently, she didn't do enough, Esmee thought six months later, as she heard Savannah's pleas for mercy from the next room over. Her poor sister had done little more than knocking over a beer bottle as she chased herself and Claudia around the living room.

In spite of their protests, trying to convince their father that the bottle simply fell off the coffee table and was not knocked, Esmee and Claudia had been locked in their shared bedroom and forced to listen as their sweet sister was beaten raw, large red welts crimson against her otherwise pale skin.