While I was waiting for my doctor’s appointment, a nurse in blue scrubs walked up to me with a clipboard in her hands and a polite, tired smile on her face.

“Your daughter is ready to be discharged,” she said. “She’s stable now.”

I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t have a daughter.

Then I saw the girl standing just behind her.

She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen. Stringy dark hair, hospital bracelet on her wrist, skin a little too pale against the oversized T‑shirt they’d put her in. She was staring straight at me with wide, terrified eyes, hands pressed together like she was praying.

Her lips moved soundlessly.

Please say yes.

Her whole body was shaking.

Something in her face—raw, desperate, more than just teenage drama—made every instinct in me go on high alert. I swallowed the automatic correction.

“Yes,” I said, standing up so fast my chair scraped the floor. “Sorry, I was zoned out. Let’s go, honey.”

The nurse’s smile warmed.

“She had a severe allergic reaction, but she’s stable now,” she said, handing me the clipboard. “Just sign here, Mrs. Kesler.”

Kesler. Not my last name.

I didn’t even hesitate. My hand shook a little as I signed the fake name in a sloppy scrawl.

The girl moved close to my side, her fingers wrapping around my arm so tightly I could feel the tremors running through her. It felt like being grabbed by a live wire.

The nurse glanced at the paperwork, nodded, and tucked the clipboard under her arm.

“You can take her home now,” she said. “Her father called earlier and said he was on his way if you needed to leave, but I told him Mom was already here.”

The girl’s face went paper-white.

Her nails dug into my skin hard enough to hurt.

As soon as the nurse walked away, the girl leaned in, voice barely above a whisper.

“We need to leave right now,” she said. “Before he gets here.”

We walked fast toward the exit doors, my brain racing to keep up with what my body had already decided to do. The automatic doors whooshed open, and cool air hit my face as we stepped into the parking lot.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Who’s coming for you?”

“I’m in foster care,” she said, matching my pace, eyes scanning the cars like she expected someone to jump out at any second. “But they’re not a real foster family.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

We pushed through the last set of doors into the sunlight bouncing off rows of cars. The hospital loomed behind us, all glass and beige concrete.

“There are six teenage girls in the house,” she said. “They make us do online work for twelve hours every day. We’re not allowed to stop.”

Her voice shook. The words came out fast, like she was afraid we were on a timer.

I glanced at her. Sixteen at most. Collarbone sharp above her T‑shirt, shadows under her eyes, hospital band still tight on her wrist.

“We need to call the police,” I said. “Right now.”

She shook her head so hard her messy hair whipped around her face.

“I tried to call my caseworker last week,” she said. “He found out.”

She yanked up her sleeve.

A dark bruise wrapped around her upper arm like someone had grabbed her hard and not let go.

“He locked me in the basement for three days,” she whispered.

My stomach dropped.

“Who did this to you?” I asked.

“My foster dad,” she said. “But he works for the foster system. He’s a placement coordinator. Nobody believes us because he knows how to make everything look legal.”

We were weaving between parked cars now, heading toward the far corner of the lot where I’d managed to find a spot that morning.

“What happened today?” I asked. “Why did they bring you to the hospital?”

“They make us take sleeping pills every night so we don’t ‘cause problems,’” she said, bitterness slicing through the fear in her voice. “I’m allergic to something in them. My throat started closing up this morning, so they had to bring me here.”

She swallowed hard.

“I gave them a fake name,” she said. “And when I saw you in the waiting room, I just took a chance. I pointed at you and said you were my mom.”

I fumbled in my purse for my keys, heart pounding.

“That was smart thinking,” I said.

She suddenly stopped walking, fingers tightening around my hand until my knuckles ached.

“That’s his car,” she whispered.

I followed her gaze.

A silver Honda sat three rows over, angled toward the exit. It looked like every other mid-size sedan on the road. Empty. Ordinary. Completely wrong.

“He’s already here,” she said, voice cracking.

My heart climbed into my throat.

“If his car is here, that means he’s inside the hospital right now looking for you,” I said. “We have to move. Now.”

We started walking faster, trying not to look like we were running for our lives. My car was maybe thirty feet away.

“He always wears his work badge on a blue lanyard,” she said, talking fast, breath coming in quick bursts. “People trust him because they think he works at the hospital. He has connections. He knows cops.”

Her words were tumbling out in gasps now.

“He texted the other kids this morning,” she whispered. “He said if I ran away, he’d make all of them pay for it. They’re probably getting punished right now because of me.”

“We’ll get them help,” I said. “First, we get you somewhere safe.”

We were nearly at my car when a man’s voice cut across the lot.

“Excuse me, ma’am!”

Both of us turned at the same time.

A tall, bald man with glasses was walking toward us from the direction of the hospital entrance. He wore khakis, a button-down shirt, and a plastic ID badge on a blue lanyard just like the girl had described.

I felt the girl beside me go rigid. Her breathing turned into sharp, rapid gasps.

“That’s him,” she whispered. “That’s my foster dad.”

My blood went cold.

As he got closer, I saw his face clearly.

Recognition hit me like a punch.

“No,” I said, my voice barely more than air. “No. That can’t be right.”

The girl dug her nails into my hand.

“That’s him,” she insisted. “His real name is Pablo Reeves. He has six of us in that house. The foster paperwork is all fake.”

He stopped a few feet away from us, eyes flicking from me to the girl and back again.

“Kate?” he said.

My brother.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, confusion and something darker crossing his face. “And why do you have Madison?”

Madison. So that was her name.

She shrank behind me, fingers clutching the back of my jacket.

Pablo took another step closer, his voice turning what I used to think of as “professional friendly.”

“Kate, you don’t understand what’s happening here,” he said. “Madison gets confused. She has behavioral issues. Let me take her home so we can sort this out.”

He reached his hand toward her.

“She’s not going anywhere with you,” I said, stepping in front of her.

His jaw tightened.

“She doesn’t need your permission,” he said, the warmth dropping out of his voice.

“Madison,” he added, eyes shifting past me, “get over here. Now.”

I felt Madison press herself against my back, trembling.

“Get away from us,” I said.

My hand went into my purse and closed around my phone. My fingers were shaking so hard I could barely unlock it.

Pablo’s eyes narrowed when he saw the screen light up.

“You’re really going to call the police on me?” he asked quietly. “On your own brother?”

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t care that you’re my brother. You’re trafficking children. Family or not, you’re a monster.”

My thumb hit 9‑1‑1 and pressed call.

Madison’s grip on my jacket tightened. She was so close I could feel her breath against my ear.

“Pablo knows cops who’ve helped him before,” she whispered. “When other girls tried to run.”

The phone rang once.

Pablo’s face rearranged itself. The friendly, concerned expression vanished. His eyes went cold and flat, like he was looking at a problem he needed to solve, not a sister and a terrified teenager.

“You’re making a huge mistake,” he said evenly. “Madison is a very troubled kid. She has a documented history of lying about her caregivers. This is all in her file. You’re getting played.”

“911, what’s your emergency?” a woman’s voice said in my ear.

I didn’t take my eyes off Pablo.

“This is Kate Reeves,” I said. “I’m at County Hospital, parking lot Section C. I have a foster child with me who says she and five other girls are being trafficked by my brother, Pablo Reeves, a foster placement coordinator. He’s here now. He’s trying to take her.”

Pablo’s face went white when I said the word trafficking.

Madison pressed closer, shaking so hard my own body vibrated.

The operator asked me to repeat the details, to describe what Pablo looked like, what kind of car he drove.

“Silver Honda, four-door sedan,” I said, watching as he stood there for three long seconds, calculating.

Then he turned around and walked quickly toward his car.

He didn’t run. Didn’t shout. Just moved fast and controlled, like everything was still under his command.

“He’s leaving,” Madison cried. “He’s leaving to hurt the others.”

“The police are on their way,” the operator said. “Stay where you are. Stay on the line.”

I described Pablo’s car as he pulled out of the parking space and turned toward the exit. Madison let out a small, broken sound.

“He said if I ran, everyone would pay,” she whispered.

“Officers will go to the house,” the operator said. “You did the right thing calling us. Just stay where you are.”

Four minutes later, two patrol cars rolled silently into the lot, lights flashing, no sirens.

Two officers got out—one older with gray at his temples, the other younger, maybe thirty. Madison ducked slightly behind me when they approached.

The older officer introduced himself and asked what was going on.

I told them everything, as quickly and clearly as I could. Madison was a foster kid. Six girls total. My brother was their placement coordinator and foster father. Twelve hours of forced online “work,” sleeping pills, basement punishment.

When I said Pablo’s name, the younger officer’s expression flickered.

“I know Pablo Reeves,” he said. “He’s… he’s a respected placement coordinator. He’s helped us find homes for a lot of kids.”

My stomach dropped.

The older officer asked Madison if what I was saying was true.

She nodded, but no sound came out at first. Her fingers dug into my jacket.

“You can talk to them,” I murmured. “I’m right here.”

“I… it’s all true,” she whispered finally. “There are six of us. We work online twelve hours every day. He takes everything. If we complain, he locks us in the basement. He—he hurts us.”

The officers glanced at one another.

“We need to take separate statements,” the younger one said. “Why don’t you come with me, Madison, and we’ll—”

“No,” I snapped before I could stop myself. “She stays with me. Or I’m calling a lawyer right now, and we can do this the hard way.”

Both officers froze.

The older one held his hands up, palms out.

“Ma’am, we’re just trying to get clear information,” he said.

“And you will,” I said. “But she’s terrified. I’m the only adult here she trusts. You can ask your questions with both of us together or not at all.”

There was a long beat.

The younger officer shrugged slightly.

“Fine,” he said. “We can work with that.”

They spent twenty minutes asking questions right there in the parking lot. Madison answered in a quiet, shaky voice, never letting go of my hand.

She told them about the house. The other girls. The endless online work. The basement. The bruise.

When they said they needed to take her to the station for a formal interview, I said, “I’m coming with her.”

“That’s not standard procedure,” the older officer said.

“I don’t care about procedure,” I said. “She identified me as her mom at the hospital. I’m responsible for her. I’m not letting her go anywhere alone.”

The younger officer glanced at Madison, then at me.

“It might actually help,” he admitted. “She’s clearly more comfortable with you.”

So we all drove to the station—Madison in the back of a patrol car, me following in my own, my heart pounding the whole way.

The interview room had gray walls, a metal table, and a camera in the corner. A detective with dark hair and tired eyes came in ten minutes later, dressed in a rumpled shirt and blazer.

“I’m Detective Miguel Santos,” he said, sitting across from us. “Madison, can you tell me what’s been happening?”

Madison’s voice shook as she talked. She described the house, room by room. The six girls: Tiana, Lissa, and three younger ones whose names she listed with their ages. She described the daily routine—wake up, pills, twelve hours of “content creation” online, the way Pablo collected all the money.

“What kind of content?” Santos asked gently.

Madison stared at the table.

“Different kinds,” she muttered.

He didn’t press, just took notes.

She talked about the sleeping pills, how he said they were to “help them rest,” but really they just kept the girls too exhausted to fight back. She showed him the bruise on her arm where Pablo had grabbed her. She described the basement, locked doors, three days in the dark with no bathroom.

By the time she finished, Santos’s expression had shifted from skeptical to something like anger barely held in check.

“I’m going to make some calls,” he said finally. “Officers will be heading to Pablo’s house right now to check on the others.”

When he left the room, Madison started sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, shoulders shaking. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I didn’t know he was your brother. I thought—if I pointed at you, maybe you’d say yes. I just wanted someone to pretend to be my mom so I could get out for one day. I didn’t mean to ruin your life.”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” I said firmly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Pablo did. The second I found out what he was doing, he stopped being my brother. Family doesn’t mean anything when someone hurts kids like this.”

She looked up at me with red, swollen eyes.

“You really mean that?” she whispered.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Her breathing slowed a little. She leaned into my arm and let herself relax just enough to stop shaking.

When Santos came back, he had a folder in his hand and a new tightness in his jaw.

“Officers just left Pablo’s house,” he said. “All six girls were present. The house looked clean. Plenty of food. Separate bedrooms. Everyone said everything was fine and they didn’t know what Madison was talking about.”

Madison made a small, strangled sound.

“He texted them,” she gasped. “He must have texted them. He makes us practice what to say if anyone ever comes to check. He threatened them. They’re too scared to tell the truth.”

“Did the officers see anything?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

“They said the girls seemed nervous,” Santos admitted. “But nothing obvious. No visible injuries. Pablo was cooperative, showed his placement-coordinator badge, gave them copies of his foster paperwork. On the surface, it all looks legal.”

“Because he built it that way,” I said, feeling heat rise under my skin. “He created a system where nobody would ever believe them over him.”

Santos rubbed his face.

“I believe Madison,” he said quietly. “I believe something is wrong in that house. But I need more than her word when every other girl denies it and Pablo has spotless credentials. I need evidence that will hold up in court.”

“What kind of evidence?” I demanded.

“Medical records,” he said. “Financial documents. Another girl willing to talk. Anything that corroborates her story.”

“My ex-husband used to be a lawyer,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I’m calling him.”

Owen answered on the third ring.

“Hey,” he said. “Kate? What’s going on?”

I gave him the short version—hospital, Madison, Pablo, six girls, trafficking.

Silence.

“I’m calling someone,” he said finally. “Give me twenty minutes.”

About forty minutes later, Owen showed up at the station with a woman in her fifties, short gray hair, fierce dark eyes, and a battered leather briefcase.

“This is Jamie Carson,” he said. “She’s a child advocacy attorney.”

Jamie shook my hand, then Santos’s, then Madison’s.

“Let’s talk about where Madison is sleeping tonight,” she said, cutting straight through the small talk. “Because she is not going back into a system that just handed her to her trafficker.”

Santos admitted that under normal circumstances, Madison would go into another foster placement.

“Which Pablo can easily locate,” Jamie said flatly. “He has access to the entire placement database. We need emergency housing off the grid.”

Santos sighed.

“I’ll make some calls,” he said. “But we need more evidence. And we need it fast.”

Jamie looked at me.

“First step is a full medical exam with a forensic nurse,” she said. “Not here. Somewhere Pablo doesn’t have connections.”

Within an hour, we were at a different hospital across town. A forensic nurse examiner met us in a private room and explained the process to Madison—photographs of injuries, documentation of any signs of malnutrition or chronic sleep deprivation.

Madison’s eyes filled with tears, but she agreed.

Jamie went in with her as her advocate. Owen and I sat in the waiting room, the cheap vinyl chairs squeaking under us.

I stared at my phone until the screen blurred.

Then I did something I’d been dreading since the moment I saw Pablo’s face in that parking lot.

I called my parents.

My father answered with the TV blaring in the background.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’m at the hospital,” I said. “With a teenage girl who ran away from Pablo’s foster house. Dad, he’s hurting kids. He’s running some kind of trafficking operation.”

Silence. Then his voice exploded through the speaker.

“What are you talking about?” he snapped. “Pablo would never—”

“I saw him,” I said. “With my own eyes. She has bruises. She has a bruise on her arm from where he grabbed her. They’re working twelve-hour days. They drug them to keep them compliant. The police are involved. There’s a detective—”

“You’re being manipulated,” my father said. “These foster kids come from terrible backgrounds. They lie. They act out. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Pablo has dedicated his career to helping children and you’re slandering him because some troubled teenager pointed at you in a waiting room.”

“Dad—”

“I’m calling him,” he said. “You need to think very carefully about what you’re doing to this family.”

The line went dead.

I sat there staring at my phone, throat burning. Owen put a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Forty minutes later, Madison came out of the exam room looking like every ounce of energy had been drained from her. Her eyes were red and swollen. She walked like everything hurt.

The nurse pulled Jamie aside and showed her photos on a tablet. Jamie’s face hardened as she listened.

When she came back, her jaw was tight.

“Long-term sleep deprivation,” she said quietly. “Repetitive strain injuries in her hands and wrists. Multiple bruises in different stages of healing. Significant weight loss. The allergic reaction could have killed her.”

Rage rose in my chest like a tide.

“This gives us enough for an emergency warrant,” Jamie said. “They can seize Pablo’s computers and his financial records. We’ll see exactly what he’s been doing.”

Later that evening, Santos called.

“Officers are at Pablo’s house with the warrant,” he said. “We’re taking every device in that place.”

Pablo showed up in the middle of the search, his high-priced attorney right behind him. The next day, Santos told us what the initial forensic review had found.

Six girls. Six sets of online accounts. Six revenue streams, none of which they controlled. Spreadsheets tracking their daily earnings. Columns for food, clothing, “rent,” deductions for everything so the girls were always in debt.

“And the total?” I asked.

Santos sighed.

“Over four hundred thousand dollars in the last two years,” he said. “Plus state foster payments.”

The word human trafficking entered the conversation and never left.

Pablo was arrested within days, charged with multiple counts of trafficking, child exploitation, fraud, and false imprisonment. His parents mortgaged their house to post bail. He walked out of jail in a suit and tie, looking like a good man wrongfully accused.

My phone rang again.

My mother this time.

She was sobbing before I even said hello.

“How could you do this to your brother?” she cried. “You’ve destroyed his life. His career.”

“Mom,” I said, exhausted, “he confessed. He pled guilty.”

“No,” she said. “His lawyer told us he had to say that or the prosecutor would go after us too. Madison is a pathological liar. She’s accused three other families before Pablo. It’s all in her file.”

“His fake file,” I said. “He created those reports. His paperwork is part of the crime.”

“You don’t know that,” she said. “You’re choosing to believe a stranger over your own brother. Over your own parents.”

“I’m choosing to believe evidence,” I said. “Medical records. Financial records. Two girls so far who have given statements. There will be more.”

“If you don’t apologize to Pablo,” my mother said, her voice going cold, “you are cut off from this family. Don’t call us. Don’t come to the house. You made your choice.”

She hung up.

Three days later, I opened my front door to find a social worker from CPS standing there with a clipboard and a tight bun.

“Katya Nakamura,” she said briskly, brushing past me into the living room. “I’m here regarding Madison.”

Madison hovered near the hallway, shoulders hunched.

Katya sat on my couch and started asking questions. Not about Pablo. Not about the evidence.

“Has anyone coached you on what to say to police?” she asked Madison. “Have you ever made up stories about foster parents before? Do you understand the consequences of making false allegations?”

Madison’s hands shook so badly she could barely hold the glass of water I’d given her.

“That’s enough,” I said, stepping between them. “You’re intimidating a trafficking victim.”

“I’m assessing credibility,” Katya said coolly. “Mr. Reeves has an exemplary professional record.”

“Get out of my apartment,” I said.

She stared at me.

“I’ll be filing a report about your hostile and uncooperative behavior,” she said, standing.

“Do that,” I said. “And I’ll be filing a complaint about yours.”

As soon as the door closed behind her, I called Jamie.

“Of course they sent someone who’s worked with Pablo,” Jamie said, furious. “I’m getting her removed from this case.”

Within days, she made good on that promise. Katya was taken off Madison’s file. Another social worker—the kind who actually listened—was assigned.

Meanwhile, the legal machinery kept grinding.

Madison’s emergency guardianship hearing was scheduled three weeks after the day we met.

That morning, she wore a blue dress that hung a little loose on her frame and clutched my hand in the hallway outside the courtroom.

Pablo’s lawyer argued I was an unsuitable guardian—no training, no history raising teenagers, clear bias against his client.

Jamie introduced the medical records. Photographs of bruises. Documentation of malnutrition. Notes from the forensic nurse about chronic sleep deprivation.

Detective Santos testified about the computers, the financial records, the other girls.

Then Madison took the stand.

The judge asked her why she wanted to stay with me.

“Because she’s the first adult who believed me,” Madison said, voice shaking. “The first one who protected me. I feel safe at her house. If I have to go back into the foster system, I’ll run away. I don’t trust anyone in it anymore.”

The judge was quiet for a long time.

Then he granted me temporary guardianship for ninety days, with a review hearing to follow.

Madison cried all the way out of the courtroom, clinging to my hand.

“Thank you,” she kept whispering. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” I said. “You’re not going back there. Ever.”

In the weeks that followed, the case only grew.

We reached out to Tiana through an email address Madison remembered from the house. She replied from a public library computer, confirming everything Madison had said and adding more.

She wrote about Lissa, the girl who’d been in Pablo’s house the longest. About the younger girls who followed Lissa’s lead in everything.

Tiana agreed to meet with Detective Santos during a school lunch period. Her statement matched Madison’s in every disturbing detail.

With two victims now, Santos got approval to dig deeper.

Lissa eventually agreed to talk too.

Her statement blew the case wide open.

She described how it had started—real online tutoring at first, then a shift to “content” that made more money. She talked about Pablo’s friends in other states, about girls moved back and forth like inventory.

The FBI got involved.

Agent Anastasia Chang sat in our living room one afternoon with a file thick enough to be a college textbook and told us they had identified at least four other men in three different states running schemes like Pablo’s.

Seventeen more girls were rescued in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Three months after Madison first grabbed my arm in that hospital waiting room, Pablo stood in federal court and pled guilty to multiple counts of human trafficking, child exploitation, fraud, and conspiracy.

He was sentenced to twenty-eight years in federal prison.

The other men in the network got between twenty-two and thirty years.

“Madison’s bravery saved dozens of kids,” Agent Chang told me over the phone. “If she hadn’t pointed at you that day, we might not have found this for years. Or ever.”

The five other girls from Pablo’s house were placed in separate foster homes across the county. It felt cruel on the surface, but Jamie explained it was necessary—prosecutors needed to show their stories matched independently, without claims of coordination.

The girls were allowed supervised video calls twice a month.

The first time Madison saw Tiana’s face on the screen, she burst into tears and laughed at the same time. Lissa joined the call and held up a guitar, grinning shyly as she talked about lessons in her new placement.

They were still scared. Still uncertain. But they were alive. They were out.

My parents sent an email through their attorney six weeks after Pablo’s sentencing.

They acknowledged he had confessed.

They asked if I would be willing to meet.

I read the message three times.

Part of me wanted to see them. To yell. To ask them why it took a guilty plea, federal charges, and twenty-eight years for them to believe me.

The bigger part of me was just tired.

I wrote back through Jamie and said I wasn’t ready.

My mother wrote again asking if Madison would meet them instead.

I deleted that email.

Madison started therapy twice a week with a specialist in trafficking trauma. She did school online because the thought of sitting in a classroom made her chest lock up.

Some days she was almost like any other teenager—rolling her eyes at my attempts to cook, arguing about what to watch on Netflix, talking about music and movies.

Other days, she barely left her room. Nightmares woke her up screaming. The sound of a car door slamming too hard outside made her flinch.

She refused to take any medication at first. Pills meant Pablo, meant not waking up, meant danger.

So I sat on the edge of her bed every night until she fell asleep. Left my bedroom door open so she could come get me when the nightmares hit.

Progress was slow, but it was progress.

Six months after that day in the waiting room, we went back to court for a permanent guardianship hearing.

Madison wore that same blue dress, this time with a jean jacket and small silver earrings she’d picked out herself.

The judge reviewed letters from her therapist, from Detective Santos, from Agent Chang. They all said the same thing: she was safe, stable, and healing in my care.

The judge asked if this was still what she wanted.

“Yes,” Madison said, voice steady. “I want to stay with her. She chose me when she didn’t have to.”

He signed the order.

Just like that, I was her legal guardian.

We walked out of the courthouse into sharp autumn air. Madison clutched the copy of the order in both hands like it might disappear if she blinked.

“Can I… call you Mom?” she asked suddenly, eyes darting up to mine.

My throat tightened.

“Yeah,” I said, voice cracking. “Yeah, you can.”

A year slipped by faster than I expected.

Madison still had bad days. She still woke up sometimes convinced Pablo was coming for her. Crowded spaces made her anxious. Loud arguments sent her straight back to that basement.

But there were more good days now than bad.

She talked about trying in-person school next year. Her therapist thought she was ready to start dipping her toes back into normal teenage life.

I started a support group for guardians of trafficking survivors because it turned out I wasn’t the only one fumbling through this mess in the dark. Tiana’s foster mom joined. So did a woman from Ohio whose niece had been rescued in the federal raids.

We drank bad coffee in folding chairs at the community center and talked about panic attacks, court dates, and the awkwardness of parent–teacher conferences when your kid’s file reads like a criminal indictment against someone else.

My parents called sometimes. The conversations were brittle and cautious. They apologized in vague terms for “not understanding sooner,” but they never quite said the words I needed.

I kept my distance.

One night, Madison and I were sitting on the couch surrounded by takeout containers and half-finished homework. Some true-crime documentary played in the background with the volume low.

“Do you ever regret it?” she asked suddenly.

“Regret what?” I asked.

“Saying yes,” she said. “In the waiting room. When I pointed at you. Do you ever wish you’d just said you didn’t have a daughter?”

I thought about my parents. About Pablo. About the nights I’d spent wide awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I’d destroyed my family.

Then I looked at her.

Madison, whose hands didn’t shake quite as much anymore. Who laughed at stupid TikToks. Who’d started keeping a list on her phone titled “Things I Want to Do Before I’m 18.”

“Not for a single second,” I said.

She blinked fast, eyes going shiny.

“I’m glad you were there,” she whispered.

“I’m glad you picked me,” I said.

Some days are still heavy. Some nights she still wakes up screaming. There are moments when I catch her staring at our front door like she expects it to burst open.

But then there are mornings when she sings off-key along with the radio while we make pancakes. Afternoons when she scrolls through pictures of Tiana and Lissa’s new pets on supervised video calls and snorts at their jokes. Evenings when she curls up on the couch, leans her head on my shoulder, and just… breathes.

We’re not done. Healing isn’t neat. It’s messy and slow and full of backslides.

But we’re building something real together.

And every time I walk into a waiting room and see a kid sitting alone, I think about that first nurse, that clipboard, that fake last name—and the terrified girl who looked at me like I might be her last chance.

If I had to make the choice again, I’d still say yes.