After years of losses that did not leave visible scars but hollowed me out all the same, I stopped expecting my life to change. I learned how to be steady. I learned how to wake up and go to bed without hoping for anything in between.
That was when the call came.
The woman from the county office spoke slowly, the way people do when they are trained to deliver information that might send someone running in the opposite direction. Her name was Marilyn Knox, and she asked if I was still interested in temporary foster placement.
“There is a boy,” she said, choosing each word carefully. “He is almost ten. He does not speak. Not in school, not in therapy, not anywhere. We have had difficulty finding a stable placement.”
I did not ask for a diagnosis or a backstory right away. I asked one simple question.
“Is he safe right now?”
There was a pause before she answered. “He is physically safe, yes.”
That was enough.
When Marilyn arrived at my house later that week, she carried a folder thick with forms and a tension she tried unsuccessfully to hide. She explained schedules, expectations, emergency contacts, and exit plans, but I was already listening for the sound of another presence behind her.