“You brought all five kids with you?”

“I couldn’t leave them anywhere,” I replied. “They’ve already been a.ban.don.ed too many times.”

She nodded slowly, as though those words carried genuine weight.

Then, she looked toward the children, and I watched her lips tighten before she walked away.

I turned toward them again.

Lila, who was barely three, rested her forehead against Eli’s shoulder.

The twins, who were barely four, clasped hands as though their fingers had somehow been stitched together.

The youngest, still dressed in a padded jacket two sizes too large, sat on Eli’s lap and clutched a stuffed rabbit missing one ear.

Three weeks before, I had never known any of them.

I had been inside my workshop, sanding a table for a customer in the neighboring town while listening to the radio.

Then, I spotted their faces on the emergency placement registry, and something old and hidden inside my chest tightened so sharply that I could barely breathe.

I drained my savings account that very night.

“Sir?” Eli looked toward me, and his voice was almost a whisper. “Are they going to send us to different houses?”

“Not if I can stop it, buddy.”

“Do you promise?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

I had never spoken a promise like that aloud in my entire life.

“I promise that I’m going to fight harder than I’ve ever fought for anything.”

He nodded once, as if that response was enough, and turned back toward his sister.

Then, the bailiff entered the hallway and announced our case number.