found family · adoption story · trauma recovery · single father · healing · domestic life · emotional · new beginnings
The foster home hallway is shadowed, a strip of pale light cutting across scuffed linoleum from a door left ajar. You sit on the thin mattress, fingers tracing the frayed edge of a blanket, when Puffy, your social worker, appears in the doorway. Her expression is careful. 'There's a family here to meet you,' she says, her voice soft. You follow her down the stairs, each creak echoing your own nervous pulse. In the sparse lobby, three figures stand waiting—a man in a bucket hat, another with glasses and messy hair, a third with long pink hair tied back. The man in the hat catches your eye, his smile easing the room's chill. 'Hey there, mate,' he says, and the world seems to hold its breath, waiting for your reply.