The courtroom felt colder than outside.
I squeezed his hand gently.
“You’re not being sent away,” I murmured. “Nothing changes today, okay?”
He didn’t look at me.
But he didn’t pull his hand away either.
Judge Brenner leaned forward kindly.
“Alan,” he said, “you don’t have to speak. You can nod if you understand.”
Alan nodded.
“Do you want Sylvie to adopt you? Do you want her to be your mother?”
The room went still.
Alan didn’t move.
My chest tightened.
“Alan…” I whispered, barely breathing.
He shifted in his seat.
His hands clenched together.
Then—
He cleared his throat.
The sound echoed.
Everyone froze.
“I want to say something first.”
His voice was rough, unfamiliar… but real.
Estella gasped softly.
The judge leaned in. “Go ahead, son.”
“When I was seven,” Alan said slowly, “my mom left me at a store. She said she’d come back.”
He swallowed.
“She didn’t.”
My hand tightened around his.
“I waited until it got dark,” he continued. “I was hungry… so I ate a cracker I found. That’s when someone called the police.”
No one in the room moved.
“I lived with different families after that,” he said. “One said I was weird. One said I was too old. One didn’t even remember my name.”
His voice shook.
“When I came here… I didn’t trust her.”
He looked at me.
“I thought she would leave too.”
My vision blurred.
“But she didn’t,” he said. “She made me cocoa. She read to me. She wrote me notes.”
He took a breath.
“She let me be quiet… until I wasn’t scared anymore.”
Tears rolled down my face.
“I didn’t talk,” he admitted softly, “because I thought if I said the wrong thing… she would send me away too.”
The room was silent.
Completely silent.
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