David’s face tightened. “About Milo?”
“You said he wasn’t going to be staying like this much longer.”
Milo felt the room tilt. He had spent years learning not to trust the word staying. Adults used it until a caseworker arrived with a plastic bag. Families said it before whispering in hallways. Staying could mean a night, a month, or until someone decided you were too difficult.
Sarah lowered the paper. “Jake, what exactly did you hear?”
“Enough.”
“No. You heard part of something. Tell me the part.”
Jake’s anger returned because anger was easier than embarrassment. “Dad said, ‘Milo isn’t going to be staying here as a foster placement much longer.’ Then you said you had to wait for the paperwork. What else was I supposed to think?”
Milo stopped breathing.
David looked at Sarah. Sarah closed her eyes for one second.
Then she said, “You were supposed to hear the next sentence.”
Jake said nothing.
Sarah turned toward Milo. Her voice softened, but she did not approach him. “We were talking to your caseworker on speakerphone. We have been trying not to tell you too soon because there are still steps that have to happen.”
Milo stared at her.
David swallowed. “The sentence after the one Jake heard was that if the court approves the permanency plan, you will not be staying here as a foster placement. You will be staying here as our son.”
No one moved.
Milo looked from David to Sarah as if the words were written in another language. “What?”
Sarah’s eyes filled. “We are applying to adopt you.”
The first thing Milo felt was not joy. It was fear. A sharp, immediate fear that made him step backward.
“You cannot say that unless it is true.”
Sarah’s face crumpled. “I know.”
“People say things.”
“I know.”
“Then they change their minds.”
David came around the table slowly. “That is why we had not told you yet. We wanted to wait until the process was further along. We thought protecting you from uncertainty was kinder than giving you hope too soon.”
Milo looked at Jake. “He knew?”
“He knew one sentence,” Sarah said. “And instead of asking us, he used it against you.”
Jake’s jaw tightened. “I thought he was leaving.”
Milo stared at him. “So you destroyed my stuff?”
Jake’s eyes flicked away.
“Because you thought I was leaving?”
