[The latest: the grieving father is trying to grasp how he left his twins to die.]

Two days after 1-year-old twins died in a hot car in the Bronx, their mother pleaded on Sunday for leniency for her husband after he said he forgot the children in the car.

Their mother, Marissa A. Rodriguez, called their deaths “my absolute worst nightmare.”

“Though I am hurting more than I ever imagined possible, I still love my husband,” Ms. Rodriguez wrote in a statement released by her lawyer. “He is a good person and great father and I know he would’ve never done anything to hurt our children intentionally.”

Her husband, Juan Rodriguez, 39, of New City, N.Y., was arrested and charged late on Friday, the police said. He left the children inside a parked silver Honda Accord on Friday morning in the Bronx and reported for his job at the James J. Peters V.A. Medical Center, officials said.

Mr. Rodriguez told officials he assumed he had dropped his twins — a girl named Luna and boy named Phoenix, who were born last July — at day care before he drove to work, according to a criminal complaint provided by the Bronx district attorney’s office.