Richard Miller’s life had settled down by 1979.
He was 34 and had lost his wife. His wife, Aipe, had passed away two years prior following a protracted illness.
His house, which used to be full of children’s hopes and dreams, now felt empty.
The nights were the hardest portion of Richard’s day. He sat at the kitchen table, looking at the painted paper that was falling apart in the yellow light of a solitary bulb. The clock ticking reminded him to pass the time.
His friends advised him to marry again, start afresh, and fill the hole.
Richard, on the other hand, didn’t want to start over.
“Don’t let love die with me,” Apple told him while he was in the hospital. He had to maintain his promise. Let me know where I’m going.
He kept driving because of the promise he made, even though he didn’t know where it would lead him until his old, broken-down pickup truck broke down near the Santa Maria Orphanage on the edge of town.
His muffled cries led him along the dark hallway as he rushed inside to use the phone and dry off.
There were rows of boxes next to each other in the small space.
Two women with dark skin and huge brown eyes reached into the room with their frail arms.
The sounds didn’t happen all at once; they were layered on top of each other. One was whimpering, another was licking, and others were groaning, producing a heartbreaking chorus.
Richard’s body didn’t move.
Nine little ones.
A nurse who was a teenager watched her.
She said in a low voice that the women had been found together, taken down to the church steps at night, and then brought back to the same residence.
“There are only two of you,” she stated again in a soft voice. “I’ll take you in, maybe two of you, but not all of you.” She will soon end their relationship.
He felt like he had been chopped in half when he heard the word “separated.”
Richard thought about Appe’s suggestion. He considered that the family was not founded on blood but on election.
He became worked up and continued, “What if someone takes them all?”
The nurse almost laughed out loud.
“The babies?” No one can take care of babies, sir. There are people like me. Not at all. People would think you were nuts.
But Richard could no longer hear their inquiries.
As he stepped up to the houses, one of the babies glanced at him in horror, as if they knew who he was.
Someone else took his hand.
A third person laughed out loud.
Something within of him broke.
The emptiness that had been hard to handle grew into something bigger but still alive.
Responsibility.
He answered, “I will take them.”
The choice caused a fight among the administration.
People who worked with her said she was careless.
Her relatives told her she was a total moron.
People in the neighborhood were snorting beneath their blinds and wondering what a white father was doing with black offspring.
Some folks said even worse things.
But Richard gave in.
She sold her car, Appe’s jewelry, and her tools to get formula, diapers, and other items.
She asked for more work in the factory, worked extra hours at the restaurant, and worked on roofs on the weekends.
All the money went to those youngsters.
She built their houses by hand, boiled baby bottles on the stove, and washed piles of colored garments in her backyard, which looked like battle tubs.
He found out that every soft touch made each baby feel better.
He learned how to braid hair with his clumsy fingers.
He was so scared of losing even his breath that he stayed up all night in the dark gathering it.
People who weren’t there thought he was mean.
The mothers at the school weren’t sure.
A lot of people in the stores were looking at him.
He once warned, “You will regret this,” and then he spat at his feet.
But they never felt sorry.
When they got to the music store, it was the first time they had laughed.
He will hold them all till they pass out in his arms when storms knock out the power at night.
On birthdays, there won’t be any cakes lined up, and on Christmas mornings, two people will rip up old newspapers and gifts.
People who didn’t know them called them “the Nine Millers.”
Richard thought of the Nine Millers as his daughters.
Sarah’s biggest laugh, Roth’s shy hold on his shirt, Naomi and Esther’s cookie cutters, Leah’s soft kindness, Mary’s silent fortress, and Happiness, Rachel, and Deborah, who were always together and filled the house with noise, all became their own personalities.
It was a hard job.
Even though she was in a lot of pain all the time and didn’t have a lot of money, she let her unhappiness show.
Her girls looked up to her for strength, and this confidence gave her strength.
The test demonstrated that real love is stronger than hate, and they passed it.
By the end of the 1990s, her hair had thinned, her back had bent, and the girls had become women who established their own families, obtained jobs, and went to college.
Richard understood that this time things were different, even if the home was quiet again.
It wasn’t empty; it was full with stuff.
He sat alone with the broken picture of the small pearls on her necklace the night she died and said, “I kept my promise, Appe.”
It’s been a long time.
Mothers, teachers, nurses, and craftsmen all did a good job.
They made their own lives, but they always came home for the holidays, which made their house so hot that it almost fell apart.
Richard, who had been made fun of and criticized in the past, survived to see his promise come true.
Richard sat in his fancy chair, feeble but dignified, in 2025, 46 years later.
There were pretty women in cream-colored gowns all around him, and their hands were resting softly on each other’s shoulders. Their faces were beaming with joy.
The cameras started rolling, and the headlines were shown: He took up two black kids as his own in 1979. Look at them now.
