The Photo That Brought Us Back: An Adoption Story About Second Chances and Family

“Who is he,” I asked, my voice hardly more than air.

“That is Daniel,” she said, and her hands trembled around a mug she had not yet sipped.

I looked back at the photo and then at the woman I had once believed fate would never let me forget. I remembered doctor visits, printed reports, and the quiet ache of closed doors. We had lived with words like unlikely and never. We had built a future that faltered because it had been balanced on those words.

“You were told you could not have children,” I said, careful and slow.

She nodded. “That part did not change.” She lifted her eyes to mine. “What changed is what I decided to do with the life that was still mine to live. I adopted him.”

The room fell into a soft hush, like a chapel after the last hymn. Althea told me how, after our separation, she visited a children’s shelter in Tlaquepaque to deliver donated books. A boy sat in a corner with a broken pencil, drawing houses and trees. He looked up.

Continue reading…