I thought the hardest part of adopting three siblings would be proving I could handle the chaos on my own. But weeks after they came home, small things stopped adding up, and I realized the children I already loved were still preparing for the day I might change my mind.
The first time I heard my three children whisper about being sent back, I was standing ten feet away with a dish towel in my hand.
“She still doesn’t know,” Eli said.
“And she can’t know,” Noah replied.
There was a pause.
“She still doesn’t know.”
Then Noah added, “Because once she does, she’ll send us back.”
I stopped wiping the kitchen counter.
Three weeks earlier, I’d welcomed all three of them into my home.
Now they were whispering like my home had an expiration date.
***
The next morning, I called Tessa, our caseworker.
“Because once she does, she’ll send us back.”
But to explain why her answer knocked the air out of me, I have to go back.
For years, I wanted one thing badly enough that I stopped admitting how badly I wanted it.
A child.
Then several doctors told me that probably wasn’t going to happen biologically.
My husband lasted another four months.
The night he left, I stood beside his suitcase near the front door.
I have to go back.
“There are other ways to build a family,” I said.
He wouldn’t look at me.
“I want a real family, Ella.”
“We are a real family.”
“Not the kind I need. Sorry.”
“I want a real family, Ella.”
Then he walked out.
My sister, Celine, arrived an hour later with takeout and didn’t say anything about the empty closets in my bedroom.
She just handed me noodles and sat beside me until I could eat.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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