Like siblings who had never been separated at all.
I stood on the porch holding a tray of lemonade and listened.
The house wasn’t silent anymore.
For three years, I had walked through empty rooms carrying grief no one could see.
I had learned to live with silence.
Then everyone warned me not to adopt Luke.
Too old.
Too difficult.
Too many placements.
Too complicated.
A teenager carrying problems no one could fix.
But Luke had never been broken.
He was a boy who loved his little sister so deeply that he had spent years destroying his own chances at a permanent home because he couldn’t bear the thought of her believing he had abandoned her.
And now, finally, he didn’t have to choose.
No one had to leave so someone else could stay.
There was room for all of us.
