My voice shook.
“I’m not looking for replacements. I’m looking for someone else to love. Those are not the same thing.”
Something in Denise’s expression softened.
“Good answer.”
The process took months.
There were endless classes.
Training about trauma.
Attachment.
How children change when the adults they depend on repeatedly fail them.
There were interviews during which strangers asked deeply personal questions and wrote everything down.
There were home inspections.
Smoke detectors.
Cabinet locks.
Bedrooms.
And conversations about grief and trauma that sometimes left me sitting in my car afterward, crying with both hands gripping the steering wheel.
But I kept going.
Every time the silence in my house threatened to swallow me again, I remembered why I had started.
Then one afternoon, Denise called.
“We’re holding an event this weekend,” she said. “Some of the kids will be there. Prospective parents too. Very informal.”
She paused.
“I think you should come.”
The event took place in a community center gymnasium.
Fluorescent lights.
Folding tables.
A floor that squeaked under every shoe.
The younger children ran around playing games and building towers.
Volunteers watched nearby.
Prospective parents wandered around with carefully neutral smiles, all trying not to look as though they were evaluating children.
I felt uncomfortable almost immediately.
For a moment, I considered leaving.
Then I saw him.
NEXT PAGE
A teenage boy sat alone near a window with a paperback resting on his knees.
The room was loud and chaotic.
He read as though he were sitting alone in a library.
Something about his stillness caught my attention.
Then a little girl nearby dropped a box of crayons.
They scattered everywhere.
The boy immediately put his book down.
He didn’t wait for an adult.
He simply stood, crouched beside her, and began gathering the crayons.
One blue crayon rolled beneath a table.
He actually lowered himself to the floor to reach it.
Then he handed the full box back to the girl.
She smiled.
He nodded once.
Then returned to his chair and reopened his book.
“Who is that?” I asked.
Denise had walked up beside me.
Her expression changed when she saw who I meant.
“Luke.”
“How old?”
“Sixteen.”
“Can I meet him?”
She hesitated.
“You should know something first.”
“What?”
“He’s had a lot of placements.”
“How many?”
“Ten.”
Ten.
Ten houses.
Ten families.
Ten times unpacking.
Ten times packing again.
