The woman at the center keeps smiling like that’ll make this easier. It doesn’t. She tells me things I already know. That visits are supervised, that the child leads, that if he’s scared, we don’t push. She uses words like “reunification” and “adjustment period,” like this is some soft story with a neat ending.I nod like I’m listening. I’m not listening though. I’m counting the seconds until that door opens.
Five years, that’s how long it’s been since they told me he died. Since they took him out of my arms and disappeared with him like I never existed and now he’s walking through that door any second from now.The counselor straightens in her seat.
“He’s here.”
My heart slams so hard I almost choke on it and then… the door creaks open.He walks in slow. His shoulders hunched, small hands tucked into the sleeves of his hoodie. He’s not the baby I remember, not the soft, wrinkled little thing I brought into the world.
He’s a boy now, grown in someone else’s shadow. But I know him, i wou
