She raised one eyebrow. “Anyone else besides him?”
I built out a proper list after that. My cousin Vanessa lived roughly an hour away. An old family friend named Owen lived nearby. I found a proper pediatrician. I researched early intervention programs thoroughly. I attended medical appointments with special permission granted.
I learned more about Down syndrome across those six months than I’d learned in my entire life before that point combined.
One particular afternoon, Renee sat across from me in my parents’ old living room. “I need to ask you something genuinely uncomfortable.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“Are you doing all of this because of Willow?”
I looked at her steadily. “Partly, yes.”
She waited patiently for more. I continued. “Willow is exactly why I originally walked through that door.”
“And Poppy herself?”
I thought about the little girl who now laughed uncontrollably every single time I pretended to sneeze around her. “Poppy is why I’m actually staying.”
Renee nodded once. That was genuinely all she needed to hear.
Months passed steadily after that. I visited constantly. Poppy got to know me properly. I got to know her in return. She loved playing peekaboo endlessly. She genuinely hated peas with a passion. She pulled her own socks off constantly, whenever nobody happened to be watching. Her laugh started out quiet, then eventually took over her entire small body.
Sometimes I’d leave after a visit and simply sit in my car crying, purely because I had absolutely no guarantee she’d ever actually come home with me for good.
Then, finally, the placement was formally approved. Not a full adoption yet. Not quite there yet. An approved pre-adoptive placement instead, while the actual legal process continued forward.
Renee met me at her office carrying the full packet. “Take your time,” she said. “You’ve already seen most of this material, but read through everything carefully regardless.”
I had already done exactly that. My attorney had gone through every draft beforehand. Renee had explained each individual condition clearly. Medical consent forms. Supervision requirements. Scheduled court dates. Ongoing reporting obligations.
I knew precisely what I was signing my name to. So I signed. Page after page after page.
When I finally finished, Renee glanced over at the clock. “That took under four minutes total.”
I looked over at Poppy instead, who was busy chewing contentedly on the ear of a stuffed rabbit. “I’ve had months already to think it all through properly.”
That same afternoon, I finally took my daughter home. Not legally my daughter quite yet. But in every single way that genuinely mattered inside that house, she absolutely was.
Epilogue: What the House Sounded Like Again
The first full year was genuinely exhausting. And wonderful, all at once. There were countless medical appointments. Developmental therapy sessions. Speech work. Physical therapy. Paperwork scattered absolutely everywhere.
There were nights she refused to sleep unless I walked slow circles around the living room, carrying her the entire time. There were mornings I joined client conference calls with mashed banana smeared across my shirt. I learned to keep baby wipes stashed in literally every single room. I learned that genuine silence from a toddler was never, ever good news.
Once, Poppy emptied an entire box of tissues out onto the bathroom floor and sat right in the middle of the pile, laughing hysterically. I took a photograph before cleaning any of it up.
For years after my own parents died, that house had sat genuinely silent. Now there were toys scattered across the hallway. Plastic cups piled in the kitchen sink. Books stacked messily beside the couch. I honestly hadn’t fully realized how lonely I’d become, until I suddenly wasn’t lonely anymore at all.
Almost a full year after the initial placement, we finally went to court together. The judge asked me several direct questions. I answered each one honestly. My hands shook the entire time regardless. Then she signed the final order.
Poppy became my daughter, legally, permanently.
Afterward, Wesley met the two of us outside the courthouse steps. He looked at her carefully. Then over at me. “I think about her sometimes, still.”
I already knew exactly what he genuinely meant by that. “You made the decision you honestly believed you could actually live with.”
He nodded slowly, taking that in. “She’s genuinely happy.”
“Yeah. She really is.”
Poppy reached toward him instinctively. Wesley smiled and let her grab hold of his finger. “She really, truly is.”
That same weekend, I brought her out to Willow’s grave. Poppy was properly walking by then, though “walking” mostly meant taking six determined steps forward and then simply sitting down wherever gravity happened to decide next.
We brought fresh flowers along. I spread a blanket out beside the headstone and pulled out one of Poppy’s favorite picture books. She climbed straight into my lap. I began reading aloud to her. She kept trying to turn three separate pages all at once. “One page at a time,” I told her gently.
She giggled at that. I looked over at Willow’s carved name. There were still moments, even now, when her death genuinely felt impossible to fully understand or accept. Poppy didn’t fix that particular ache. She was never actually supposed to. She was entirely her own person. Her own separate life. Her own genuine joy.
I touched the birthmark on her cheek gently. “I’m going to tell you absolutely everything about your mom someday,” I whispered.
Poppy grabbed for the book instead. Apparently she had considerably more urgent concerns at that particular moment. I laughed at that.
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When we finally finished, I packed everything back up. Poppy held onto one of my fingers as we walked slowly back toward the car together. “Come on, kiddo,” I said. “Let’s go home now.”
She looked up at me and smiled wide.
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