At the school picnic, Wren grabbed my hand too tightly for a six-year-old and smiled like it hurt. The photo made us look perfect—her pink shirt, my beige sweater, matching blond hair. But all I could think about was her whisper:
“Do you think they’ll let me stay this time?”
Wren lost everything in a fire—her parents, her home. They placed her with me because her mom and I were once foster kids together. She barely remembers me, but she clings like she does. Watches me like I might disappear too.
That night, I told her, “I want you to stay. As long as you want.”
She asked, “But do they want that?”
“The clipboard people,” she meant.
She whispered, “But I am safe. Here.”
I applied for permanent guardianship. It wasn’t easy—interviews, home visits, people digging into my past. But I didn’t care. She needed something I never had: stability.
Months later, it was approved. I told her, “No more maybe.”
She cried in my arms. Then drew a heart on our school photo.
“This one’s okay now,” she said.
Years passed. She called me Mom at the post office. On the back of a photo, she once wrote:
“Thank you for staying.”
Sometimes love doesn’t arrive loudly. Sometimes, it’s a quiet promise—and you saying yes.
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