“I know,” I said. “But I can’t let her be carried off by strangers.”
One night became a week.
A week became months of home visits, parenting classes squeezed between shifts, and me Googling things like how to braid hair at two in the morning. I learned how to pack lunches. How to soothe nightmares. How to function on even less sleep than nursing school ever demanded.
The first time she called me “Dad,” it slipped out in the freezer aisle at the grocery store. I pretended to be very interested in frozen peas so no one would see my face.
So yeah. I adopted her.
I switched to a steadier schedule. Started a college fund the moment I could afford to. Made sure she never had to wonder if she was wanted. I told her the truth when she asked—about where she came from, about the night we met—but I always ended the same way.
“You didn’t lose everything,” I’d say. “We found each other.”
Avery grew into this funny, sharp, stubborn kid. My sarcasm, her biological mother’s eyes—deep brown, warm, the only thing I knew about the woman from a single hospital photo tucked away in a file. She loved drawing. Hated math. Cried at animal rescue commercials and pretended not to.
