She steps closer, not touching yet.
“Were they all bad?” she asks carefully.
“No,” I say. “Some were just temporary. Some were loud. Some were quiet in the wrong way.”
“Any good ones?” she asks gently.
“Tom,” I say.
Her mouth softens around his name. She already knows he matters.
“He was the fourth house,” I tell her. “A small place with a detached garage. It smelled of oil and sawdust. He didn’t talk much.”
“You liked him immediately?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No.”
She blinks. “No?”
“I didn’t trust him.”
“Fair.”
“He didn’t try to win me over,” I continue. “Didn’t do the fake ‘we’re so happy to have you’ thing. Just showed me where the extra blankets were. Said dinner was at six. If I was late, I’d be hungry.”
She smiles faintly. “I kind of love him.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”
I grab the sanding block off the bar, mostly so I’ve got something in my hands.
“He’d let me sit in the garage while he worked,” I tell her. “Didn’t make me talk. Just handed me tools. Corrected me when I did something wrong. Never yelled. Just…” I shrug. “Showed me how.”
“That’s huge,” she says softly.
“It was good,” I reply. “First time I knew what day of the week it was without guessing.”
Her breath catches slightly at that.
“He ever try to adopt you?” she asks.
I nod once. “Filed paperwork.”
“And?”
“Didn’t clear.”
Her face falls.
“Why?”
“Bio mom contested it,” I say. “Then disappeared again.”
Aurora presses her hand over her mouth. “So you had to leave?”
“Yeah.”
“How long were you there?”
