And he pulled me close.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“For catching the dinosaur.”
I smiled against his chest.
“Good thing I didn’t duck.”
Somewhere upstairs, Luke called my name.
I kissed Adrian and went to see what he needed.
And as I climbed the stairs, I thought about the girl who’d walked into this house six months pregnant with desperation, hoping only to survive.
She’d survived.
But more than that, she’d found the one thing she didn’t know she was looking for.
Home.
And when Luke handed me the dinosaur that night and said, “Can you keep him safe? Just for tonight?”
I took it, held it close, and whispered, “Always.”
Because some promises are easy to keep.
And some families are worth every fight it takes to hold them together.
