Micah’s eyes stayed on me when he answered. “Yes.”
Sunny thumped his tail once, as if that settled it.
Cassie made a high-pitched noise. “Oh, my God.”
I covered my face with my hand. “I’m going to pass away.”
Momma laughed softly then, the sound cutting through the tension like sunlight. “Leave her alone,” she told my siblings, but she said it with warmth. “She’s been private about her heart her whole life. Give her a minute to figure out how to be seen.”
That landed.
Because it was true.
I’d always been the responsible one. The steady one. The one who didn’t ask for much. The one who kept things contained and manageable.
Being adopted didn’t make me fragile, exactly—but it made me careful. When you started life as a “maybe,” you learned early how to become low-risk. Easy to love. Easy to keep. Easy to choose again.
And I had been chosen again. Over and over.
By my parents. By this land. By the routines that kept my life predictable enough to feel safe.
Micah wasn’t predictable.
Micah was a door I’d opened and couldn’t close.
Daddy cleared his throat. “Joy.”
I dropped my hand, meeting his eyes.
“You didn’t tell us how important—,” he said, almost choking up. He wasn’t accusing. Just … hurt that I hadn’t trusted them with it.
“I didn’t plan it,” I admitted. “I didn’t even expect it.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t tell you because—because it felt like if I named it, it would become real. And if it became real, it could be taken.”
Momma’s face gentled completely. She stepped forward and took my hands in hers, squeezing. “Joy. Honey. Look at me.”
I did.
“No one can undo what’s real,” she said. “Not time. Not fear. Not some woman at the gate with a fancy car.”
My eyes stung again.
Micah shifted, like he wanted to move closer but wouldn’t unless I invited him.
I invited him without words—just by not stepping away when he came to stand beside me.
Daddy’s gaze sharpened on that, then softened. “You’ve got a good heart,” Daddy said to Micah, surprising me. “I can see that.”
Micah’s jaw flexed. “I’m trying to be worthy of her.”
Cassie made another noise—half swoon, half scream—and clapped a hand over her mouth.
I stared at Micah, my chest doing that dangerous ache thing again. Because men like him didn’t say things like that unless they meant them. And if he meant it …
I wasn’t sure I knew what to do with the magnitude.
Momma brushed my hair back from my face like I was still eight years old. “We chose the name Joy,” she said softly, “because we wanted you to know what you were to us. Not a burden. Not a question. A gift. Light.”
