Our triplets were identical in every way—same dimples, same laugh, even the same way of finishing each other’s sentences. To tell them apart, we tied colored ribbons around their wrists: blue for Max, red for Ben, and turquoise for Eli. They were three pieces of the same soul, or so we thought.
Then, one morning, Eli woke up crying. Not from a nightmare, but from memories—memories that didn’t belong to him.
“Do you remember our old house with the red door?” he asked one day. We’d never lived in a house with a red door.
“Mrs. Langley used to give me peppermints,” he said another time. We didn’t know any Mrs. Langley.
At first, we brushed it off as imagination. Seven-year-olds have wild fantasies, after all. But Eli didn’t tell these stories like they were make-believe. He spoke with quiet certainty, his eyes distant, as if he were seeing something we couldn’t.
Then he started drawing—detailed sketches of a house he’d never seen, with a stone path, tulips in the garden, and ivy climbing the chimney. His brothers thought it was cool, but Eli wasn’t playing. He seemed sad, like he missed a place he’d never been.
One day, he asked, “Where’s my old baseball glove?”
“You don’t play baseball,” I reminded him.
“I did before,” he said. “Before I fell off the ladder.”
His words sent a chill through me.
We took him to a child psychologist, who listened carefully before suggesting something unbelievable: “Some call these memories of past lives.”
I laughed at first. But then we found a researcher who studied cases like his. Over a video call, Eli told her his name “from before”—Danny. He described a house in Ohio, near train tracks, and a fall from a ladder.
Days later, the researcher called back. She’d found records of a Daniel Kramer, a seven-year-old boy who died in 1987 after falling from a ladder in his yard. She sent a photo—a boy who looked just like Eli.
After that, Eli stopped talking about the memories. He went back to being a normal kid, playing with his brothers and laughing again. But months later, a mysterious envelope arrived—a photo of a red-doored house with tulips and ivy. A note inside read: I thought you’d like this. —Mrs. Langley.
We never found out who sent it.
Eli is fifteen now. Sometimes I catch him staring at the sky, lost in thought. Last week, I found a blue marble under his bed with a note: For Eli—from Danny. You found it.
I don’t know if past lives are real. But I know Eli found peace. And that’s enough.
