Every family before us wanted four-year-old Josie—until they learned adopting her meant taking her 16-year-old brother too. We said yes to both. A month later, their former foster mother called and asked one question that changed everything: “They still haven’t told you why they picked you?”
My husband and I spent five years trying to have a child before we finally gave up on falling pregnant. It wasn’t that we wanted a family any less. We were simply tired of doctor visits, tests, medications, and disappointment. One night, after another failed appointment, Daniel sat beside me on our kitchen floor while I cried.
We finally gave up on falling pregnant.
“We still have room,” he said quietly. “We could adopt.” *** Eight months later, we met Josie. She was four years old, with brown curls, enormous dark eyes, and a smile that appeared slowly, like she wasn’t sure whether she was allowed to use it yet. She was sitting at a small table in the agency’s family room, coloring a purple dog.
Eight months later, we met Josie.
“That’s a nice dog,” Daniel told her.
“It’s a wolf.”
“Then that’s an excellent wolf.”
She studied him for about three seconds before laughing. I loved her immediately.
She studied him for about three seconds before laughing.
I know you’re not supposed to say things like that. We had been warned not to arrive expecting some magical instant bond. But I looked at Josie and felt something inside me shift. Then our caseworker, Rebecca, asked if Daniel and I could speak privately. There was something we needed to understand.
I know you’re not supposed to say things like that.
Josie had an older brother. Jace was sixteen. “They’re a sibling group,” Rebecca explained. “They need to be placed together.” Daniel glanced at me.
I asked, “Where is he?” “Down the hall.”
“They need to be placed together.”
I frowned. “Why wasn’t he in the meeting?” Rebecca hesitated. That hesitation told me more than her answer did. “A number of families have expressed interest in Josie,” she said. “When they’ve learned Jace is part of the placement, they’ve reconsidered.” I felt embarrassed on behalf of people I had never met.
“Why wasn’t he in the meeting?”
“Because he’s sixteen?” “Teen placements are harder.” Daniel crossed his arms. “Does he have behavioral problems?” “No more than I would expect from a teenager who’s been through significant instability.” It was a careful answer.
“Does he have behavioral problems?”
Rebecca folded her hands. “Jace knows why previous families changed their minds.” “And he expects us to change ours too?” I asked. Rebecca didn’t answer right away. “I think Jace expects adults to prove what they mean.”
“And he expects us to change ours too?”
That sentence stayed with me. A few minutes later, Jace walked in. He was tall and thin, dressed in a gray hoodie despite the warm room. His hair fell over his forehead. He nodded once when Rebecca introduced us but didn’t smile. Josie immediately ran over to him.
A few minutes later, Jace walked in.
We spent nearly two hours together. Josie talked enough for everyone. Jace mostly answered questions with one or two words.
Daniel asked whether he played sports. “Basketball sometimes.”
We spent nearly two hours together.
“What position?” Jace shrugged. “Guard.” Daniel nodded. “I played guard in high school.” For the first time, Jace actually looked at him. Josie looked up too.
For the first time, Jace actually looked at him.
At the time, I thought she was just listening to them talk. Jace arched his eyebrows.
“You played guard?”
Daniel laughed. “I was faster before my knees turned eighty.” Jace gave him a small grin.
I thought she was just listening to them talk.
Later, when Rebecca mentioned having dinner together during another visit, I asked Josie what she liked to eat.
“Mac and cheese.” “Of course.” Then I looked at Jace. “What about you?” He seemed surprised. “Me?”
“What about you?”
“Unless you’re planning to live on whatever Josie leaves behind.” He glanced at his sister. Josie was already watching us. “I eat everything,” she said proudly. “You won’t have leftovers.” It felt ordinary. That was probably what made it so important.
He glanced at his sister.
*** A few weeks later, Rebecca called to say the placement was moving forward. We brought both of them home. Josie cried the first night. Then the second.
Then the fourth.
We brought both of them home.
Sometimes she woke up screaming for Jace, and he would appear in her doorway before Daniel or I could even get out of bed. “I’m here,” he would tell her. “You’re okay.” He never mentioned that Daniel and I were there, too. I noticed. I tried not to take it personally.
Sometimes she woke up screaming
But one morning, Josie woke before him and wandered into our room instead. She climbed between Daniel and me without asking and fell asleep again. When Jace found her there, he stopped in the doorway. For once, he didn’t immediately call her back to him. He just stood there for a second, then quietly walked away.
When Jace found her there, he stopped in the doorway.
Jace was harder to read. He was polite. Almost painfully polite. He never asked for anything, ate whatever I cooked, and kept his room unnaturally neat. After a week, I realized why. He hadn’t unpacked.
Jace was harder to read.
His clothes were still inside two duffel bags. His books remained in his backpack. His shoes sat beside his suitcase. “You know you can use the dresser,” I told him one afternoon. “And the closet.” “Okay.” But he didn’t move.
His clothes were still inside two duffel bags.
I wanted to ask why. Instead, I let it go. Something told me pushing him would only make him zip the bags tighter.
After that, I stopped mentioning them. But every few days, I found myself checking.
I wanted to ask why.
The bags never moved. Everything else in the house slowly started belonging to Jace — a basketball by the back door, his cereal in the pantry, his charger permanently stealing an outlet in the kitchen. Only his bedroom still looked temporary. *** A month passed.
The bags never moved.
Josie started calling our house “home.” Jace stopped calling us “sir” and “ma’am.” One night at dinner, Daniel made an awful joke about pasta, and Jace laughed so hard milk came out of his nose. Josie screamed with delight. I laughed until my stomach hurt.
Josie started calling our house “home.”
For a few minutes, nobody was careful. Nobody was measuring the room. Nobody was waiting for the next problem. Then Jace reached across the table and stole a piece of garlic bread from Daniel’s plate. Daniel slapped his hand away. “Get your own.”
For a few minutes, nobody was careful.
Jace grinned and took it anyway. It was such a stupid, ordinary thing. But it was the first time I’d seen him act like he expected to be there tomorrow. I remember looking around the table and thinking, This is it. *** The next afternoon, my phone rang.
It was such a stupid, ordinary thing.
It was Marlene, the foster mother Jace and Josie had lived with before us.
She had called once before to ask how they were settling in. I liked her. She sounded genuinely happy when I told her Josie had started preschool and Jace had joined an after-school basketball program.
The foster mother Jace and Josie had lived with before us.
“He’s laughing more,” I said. “Not constantly, but more.” “That’s good.”
“And Josie’s sleeping through most nights now.”
“Good.” Then I told her Jace had cooked dinner with Daniel the night before.
“He’s laughing more,”
“He actually cooked with Daniel?” she asked. There was something in her voice that I couldn’t place.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Nothing,” she said, too quickly. There was a silence.
Not a normal pause.
“Nothing,” she said, too quickly.
Something changed. “Marlene? Is something wrong?” “No. I just… They still haven’t told you why they picked you?” I smiled at first because I thought I had misunderstood her. “Why they what?”
“Is something wrong?”
“Picked you.” My smile disappeared.
“What are you talking about?”
Marlene hesitated. “That’s what I thought. You need to ask Rebecca why they chose your family.” Before I could get anything else out of her, she apologized and ended the call.
“You need to ask Rebecca why they chose your family.”
I stood in my kitchen holding my phone.
They picked us. I had spent the whole adoption process believing Daniel, and I were being evaluated as parents. Apparently, the kids had been evaluating us too. And for some reason, Jace’s behavior immediately came back to me. The packed bags. The guarded answers.
They picked us.
When Daniel came home, I told him what Marlene had said. “They chose us?” he asked. “Apparently.” We called Rebecca. After a pause, she said, “I thought Jace had told you.”
I told him what Marlene had said.
“Told us what?” “After your first meeting, I asked the kids how they felt about you. Jace came back to me and said they wanted your family.”
I stared at Daniel. Jace had barely spoken to us that day. In hindsight, I had assumed that was just Jace being Jace. Now I wondered how much he’d known before we did.
“Told us what?”
“He specifically asked for us?” “Yes,” Rebecca said. “But if you want to know why, I think that’s something you should ask him.” After we hung up, I thought about the duffel bags still sitting in Jace’s room. He had asked for our family. So why had he spent a month preparing to leave it?
“He specifically asked for us?”
That evening, I almost decided not to ask him. Then I saw his suitcase again. What bothered me wasn’t that Jace had kept something from us. It was that he’d apparently asked to come here and then spent every day acting as though we might send him away.
Those two things didn’t fit together.
I almost decided not to ask him.
Not yet. I needed to understand. After Josie finished dinner, she climbed onto the couch with a coloring book. Jace was rinsing his plate when Daniel said, “Hey, can we talk for a minute?” Jace froze. It was tiny, but I saw it.
“Hey, can we talk for a minute?”
After all this time, his whole body prepared for bad news. “About what?”
“Nothing bad.”
His eyes moved toward Josie. I hated how fast he checked for her.
His whole body prepared for bad news.
We sat at the table.
I told him Marlene had called. His expression changed immediately.
“Oh.”
“She said something strange,” I told him. “She asked if you’d ever told us why you picked us.” Jace looked down.
“She said something strange,”
“Rebecca said you were the one who told her you wanted our family.” “I did.”
“Would you mind telling us why?”
He glanced toward the living room, where Josie was coloring. “Because Josie picked you.” Of all the answers I’d imagined, that wasn’t one of them.
“Because Josie picked you.”
The person who had barely reached my waist had apparently made the biggest decision in the room. “Josie? But she’s four.”
Jace rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table. “Exactly. Nobody listens to her about important stuff because she’s little. They ask what toy she wants or what color cup she wants, but when it’s something real, adults decide for her.”
“Nobody listens to her about important stuff.”
He looked toward his sister again. “So when Josie told me she wanted you guys, I made sure Rebecca listened.” Suddenly, that sounded exactly like Jace. He’d spent a month barely asking for anything for himself. But when Josie wanted something, he’d made sure an adult heard her. She must’ve heard her name because Josie looked up.
Suddenly, that sounded exactly like Jace.
“What?” Jace motioned her over. She came running and squeezed herself between us.
“Jace says you picked us,” I said. She nodded as if this were obvious. “Why?”
Jace motioned her over.
Josie pointed at her brother. “You talked to him.” I almost smiled.
“That was it?”
Josie frowned at me like I was missing something obvious. “Everybody talks to me,” she said. “They play with me and give me snacks. But they don’t talk TO Jace. They talk ABOUT him.”
I was missing something obvious.
Jace stared at the table. “What do they say?” I asked.
“They ask if he’s bad. If he gets mad. If he can stay somewhere else.”
Jace’s jaw tightened. “One lady said she wanted me, but her house was too small for Jace.”
“What do they say?”
“After that, Josie wouldn’t talk to her anymore,” Jace said quietly. Josie shrugged.
“She didn’t want my brother.”
There was nothing childish about the certainty in her voice. Josie leaned against her brother. “So I stopped caring if people were nice to me.”
There was nothing childish about the certainty in her voice.
Daniel swallowed. “What did you care about?” “If they were nice to him.” She looked at me.
“You asked what he wanted for dinner.”
Then at Daniel.
“You talked basketball with him.”
“What did you care about?”
I remembered how surprised Jace had looked when I’d asked him what he wanted to eat.
And I remembered Josie watching us. Josie wrapped both arms around his waist. “Everybody wanted me,” she said. Then she looked up at us. “But I only wanted somebody who wanted him just as much.”
And I remembered Josie watching us.
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then I looked at Jace. There was still one thing I didn’t understand. “If Josie chose us, and you told Rebecca yes… why didn’t you unpack?” Jace went still.
There was still one thing I didn’t understand.
“Because people change their minds.” Daniel leaned forward. “We weren’t going to.”
“You know that now.”
That stopped him.
Jace looked down. “People always want her at first. Sometimes they think they can deal with me too. Then they get tired of me being there.”
“Because people change their minds.”
My throat tightened. “So I figured I’d wait.”
“For what?”
He finally looked at me. “For the moment you decided you didn’t want me anymore.” The worst part was how calmly he said it.
“So I figured I’d wait.”
He wasn’t accusing us. He was describing what he had prepared himself for. And suddenly the packed bags didn’t look like an escape plan. They looked like armor. I wanted to promise him we would never change our minds.
But I suspected he’d heard enough promises from adults.
And suddenly the packed bags didn’t look like an escape plan.
So I nodded toward the hallway. “You know that dresser in your room?” He looked at me. “Yeah.”
“I bought it because somebody lives there. The closet, too.”
His mouth tightened. “But I get it now. Whenever you’re ready, you can unpack,” I said.
So I nodded toward the hallway.
He didn’t answer. And the next morning, the bags were still exactly where they’d been. So were they the morning after that. I made myself stop checking. If unpacking was going to mean anything, it had to be his decision. ***
A week later, I walked past Jace’s bedroom and stopped.
If unpacking was going to mean anything, it had to be his decision.
The duffel bags were empty. One had been folded into the closet. His books were on the shelf. Shoes were scattered under the bed, and a hoodie hung badly from his chair. For anyone else, it would’ve looked like a messy teenager’s room. To me, it looked like an answer. Jace appeared behind me with a bowl of cereal.
The duffel bags were empty.
“What?” “You unpacked.” His ears turned red.
“Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not.” “You look like you’re going to cry.”
His ears turned red.
I wiped my cheek. “Go eat your cereal.” He smiled and went downstairs. For the first time since he’d arrived, there wasn’t a packed bag in his room waiting for someone to change their mind.
I wiped my cheek.
