My brother got 3 women pregnant and always asks me for money. Recently, he said he’s going to have another child soon. I firmly said, “Get a vasectomy!
Why do you keep having kids you can’t afford?” I was stunned when he dropped a bombshell: “Actually, it’s because… I think I’m trying to make up for something I can’t fix.”
I blinked at him, not sure I heard him right. We were standing in the parking lot of a sandwich shop, sun beating down on the asphalt, both of us holding lukewarm coffees. I’d just Venmo’d him another $200 to “hold him over,” and I was at my limit.
Emotionally, financially, mentally. But that sentence—soft, almost whispered—cracked something open. He stared down at his shoes, shuffling them like a scolded kid.
I asked what he meant, and he just shook his head. “You wouldn’t get it,” he said. “You always had it together.”
That was laughable.
I had two jobs, a broken engagement behind me, and a dog with a gluten allergy. But compared to Elian, I guess I did look stable. Three kids by three different women, none of whom he lived with.
Every few months, some new drama. Late child support, bounced checks, fights over visitation. I was tired of playing the role of his emotional (and financial) crutch.
Still, that line stuck with me—“trying to make up for something I can’t fix.”
So I pushed. We met up the next weekend, this time at a park where his oldest son, Davian, was playing soccer. Elian looked tired.
Dark circles. He was only 31, but the lines around his mouth were deepening. “You’re not off the hook,” I told him, handing him a coffee.
“What were you trying to make up for?”
He hesitated, glancing over at the field like he was stalling. Then he said, “Remember Ayda?”
It took me a minute. Ayda had been his girlfriend in college, during that one golden year when he was actually doing well.
He was on a soccer scholarship, making the dean’s list. Ayda was smart, sarcastic, from a strict Eritrean family. She had dreams of becoming a pediatrician.
We all liked her. “She got pregnant,” he said, eyes fixed on the grass. “I never told anyone.”
I froze.
“She told me during finals week,” he continued. “I freaked out. Told her it wasn’t the right time.
We fought. She left and never came back.”
I didn’t know what to say. “She… she lost the baby,” he said quietly.
“I found out later from one of her friends. And I always wondered—did stress from our fight do it? Did I push her too hard?”
There it was.
The guilt he’d been carrying around like a stone in his pocket. I didn’t know how to process it. Part of me wanted to hug him.
Another part of me was angry. He never told anyone, never took responsibility. Instead, he’d spiraled—dropped out the following year, started partying, and the next thing we knew, he was working part-time at an auto shop and couch-surfing.
“That’s why I keep thinking… maybe if I just become a better dad now, it’ll balance things out,” he said. “Like, if I show up for these kids, maybe the universe will forgive me for the one I lost.”
I let out a slow breath. “Elian, that’s not how it works.”
“I know,” he said.
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