I knew what it felt like to walk out of a hospital alone. To lose your entire world in one moment. Those kids had already lost their parents—and now the system was about to take the only thing they had left: each other.
I didn’t sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined four small hands being pulled apart in some office, someone deciding who went where.
In the morning, the post was still there. A phone number sat at the bottom.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I hit call.
“Child Services, this is Karen.”
“Hi,” I said. “My name is Michael Ross. I saw the post about the four siblings. Are they still… needing a home?”
There was a pause.
“Yes,” she said. “They are.”
“Can I come in and talk about them?”
Another pause—this one surprised. “Of course. We can meet this afternoon.”
On the drive over, I kept telling myself I was just asking questions. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t true.
