He didn’t enter my life as an answer; he arrived as a question I was terrified to get wrong. A small boy with a past, a mother, and a world I had to learn without erasing what came before me. I hovered at first, careful and clumsy—tying shoes, reading bedtime stories, learning which stuffed animal had to be found before sleep even had a chance. Somewhere between school pickups and “one more chapter,” the distance between us dissolved.

The real battle lived inside me: wanting to protect him without replacing anyone, loving him without demanding a title. His fear was quieter but heavier—was there room for me without losing her? When he finally asked, I told him love doesn’t ask us to trade; it asks us to grow. Years later, in the backseat glow of a passing streetlight, his quiet “I’m glad you’re here” carried the truth neither of us had language for back then: we were never bound by blood, but by the daily, ordinary decision to stay.