“You had a vasectomy—sure, they can be reversed sometimes,” she whispered. “but I can’t have children, Derek. That’s why I adopted Frankie.”
The words hit me, but not in the way she probably expected.
“Kat—”
“I had severe adenomyosis,” she continued, her voice shaking. “The doctors said the only option was a hysterectomy. I was twenty-three.”
“Kat.” I tilted her face up to look at me. “I don’t want to get a reversal; I’m happy with the decision I made.”
She looked up at me, her eyes glassy. “Really?”
“Really.” I kissed her forehead. “But... there is something I need to tell you.”
She tensed slightly. “What?”
“I know of three girls,” I said carefully. “Three girls who desperately need a home. Who need a family.”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“Hannah and her two sisters,” I said. “Stacy’s daughters.”
The color drained from her face. “What?”
“I asked Nav to keep an eye on them, and it’s getting worse,” I said quietly.
She sat up abruptly, pulling away from me. “Stacy’s girls?”
“Yes.” I sat up with her, keeping my hand on her back. I took a breath. “Nav’s been monitoring them. The situation is rough. They’re going to end up in the system if someone doesn’t step up,” I said carefully. “They need a home. They need a family.”
She stared at me, and I could see the wheels turning in her head—the guilt, the grief, the desperate need to fix what she couldn’t fix years ago.
“Hannah,” she said softly. “She was seven when I left. The girls were even younger.”
“Fourteen, eleven, and nine now,” I confirmed.
“And they need a home?”
“They need a family,” I corrected. “They need people who will love them and protect them and give them a chance at a real life. People who already know them. Who already care.”
She was quiet for a long moment, her eyes filling with tears.
“Tell me everything,” she finally said. “Tell me what’s been happening to them.”
And as I started to talk, describing what Nav had observed and what the three girls had been enduring, I saw something shift in Kat’s eyes.
Not just hope.
Purpose.
And maybe, just maybe, the beginning of something beautiful.
Epilogue
Frankie
Ten years later...
The auditorium was packed with rows and rows of families crammed into uncomfortable folding chairs, cameras ready, tissues at hand. I sat in the fourth row from the front, Cami behind me because we were lined up by last names.
