“No,” I said.
Denise watched me.
“Are you sure?”
I forced myself to hold her gaze.
“No one could replace them,” I said. “Grace and Noah were exactly who they were. They’re gone, and no other child could ever step into those places.”
My voice shook.
“I’m not looking for replacements. I’m looking for someone else to love. Those are not the same thing.”
Something in Denise’s expression softened.
“Good answer.”
The process took months.
There were endless classes.
Training about trauma.
Attachment.
How children change when the adults they depend on repeatedly fail them.
There were interviews during which strangers asked deeply personal questions and wrote everything down.
There were home inspections.
Smoke detectors.
Cabinet locks.
Bedrooms.
And conversations about grief and trauma that sometimes left me sitting in my car afterward, crying with both hands gripping the steering wheel.
But I kept going.
Every time the silence in my house threatened to swallow me again, I remembered why I had started.
