Everything else in the house slowly started belonging to Jace — a basketball by the back door, his cereal in the pantry, his charger permanently stealing an outlet in the kitchen.
Only his bedroom still looked temporary.
***
A month passed.
The bags never moved.
Josie started calling our house “home.”
Jace stopped calling us “sir” and “ma’am.”
One night at dinner, Daniel made an awful joke about pasta, and Jace laughed so hard milk came out of his nose.
Josie screamed with delight.
I laughed until my stomach hurt.
Josie started calling our house “home.”
For a few minutes, nobody was careful.
Nobody was measuring the room.
Nobody was waiting for the next problem.
Then Jace reached across the table and stole a piece of garlic bread from Daniel’s plate.
Daniel slapped his hand away.
“Get your own.”
For a few minutes, nobody was careful.
Jace grinned and took it anyway.
It was such a stupid, ordinary thing.
But it was the first time I’d seen him act like he expected to be there tomorrow.
I remember looking around the table and thinking, This is it.
***
The next afternoon, my phone rang.
It was such a stupid, ordinary thing.
It was Marlene, the foster mother Jace and Josie had lived with before us.
She had called once before to ask how they were settling in.
I liked her.
She sounded genuinely happy when I told her Josie had started preschool and Jace had joined an after-school basketball program.
The foster mother Jace and Josie had lived with before us.
“He’s laughing more,” I said. “Not constantly, but more.”
“That’s good.”
“And Josie’s sleeping through most nights now.”
“Good.”
Then I told her Jace had cooked dinner with Daniel the night before.
“He’s laughing more,”
“He actually cooked with Daniel?” she asked.
There was something in her voice that I couldn’t place.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Nothing,” she said, too quickly.
There was a silence.
Not a normal pause.
“Nothing,” she said, too quickly.
Something changed.
“Marlene? Is something wrong?”
“No. I just… They still haven’t told you why they picked you?”
I smiled at first because I thought I had misunderstood her.
“Why they what?”
“Is something wrong?”
“Picked you.”
My smile disappeared.
“What are you talking about?”
Marlene hesitated.
“That’s what I thought. You need to ask Rebecca why they chose your family.”
Before I could get anything else out of her, she apologized and ended the call.
“You need to ask Rebecca why they chose your family.”
I stood in my kitchen holding my phone.
They picked us.
I had spent the whole adoption process believing Daniel, and I were being evaluated as parents.
Apparently, the kids had been evaluating us too.
And for some reason, Jace’s behavior immediately came back to me.
The packed bags.
The guarded answers.
They picked us.
When Daniel came home, I told him what Marlene had said.
“They chose us?” he asked.
“Apparently.”
We called Rebecca.
After a pause, she said, “I thought Jace had told you.”
I told him what Marlene had said.
“Told us what?”
“After your first meeting, I asked the kids how they felt about you. Jace came back to me and said they wanted your family.”
I stared at Daniel.
Jace had barely spoken to us that day.
In hindsight, I had assumed that was just Jace being Jace.
Now I wondered how much he’d known before we did.
“Told us what?”
“He specifically asked for us?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said. “But if you want to know why, I think that’s something you should ask him.”
After we hung up, I thought about the duffel bags still sitting in Jace’s room.
He had asked for our family.
So why had he spent a month preparing to leave it?
