“You should know he’s had a lot of placements.”
“How many?”
“Ten.”
I stared at her.
“Was he violent?”
“No.”
“Did he hurt younger children?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
Denise sighed.
“Different things. Luke is…complicated.”
I hated that word.
I had heard adults use words like that before.
Years earlier, after my husband died, Noah’s teachers had described him as “complicated” because he stopped talking in class.
What they really meant was that my grieving eleven-year-old had stopped behaving in a way that made their jobs easy.
I looked back at Luke.
“I’d still like to meet him.”
Denise nodded.
I walked over.
Luke glanced up from his book.
He looked at the only empty chair beside him and gestured toward it.
“Please, ma’am. You can sit here.”
I almost laughed.
“I’m forty-seven, not ninety.”
His mouth twitched.
“I wasn’t implying anything.”
“You absolutely were.”
That got a real smile out of him.
We started talking about the book in his hands.
One conversation turned into another, and before I realized it, nearly an hour had passed.
When I finally stood to leave, Denise stopped me.
“One good conversation doesn’t guarantee a placement.”
“I know.”
And I did.
So I came back.
Again and again.
Luke was guarded, but he was kind.
He had a dry sense of humor and an incredible memory. He remembered almost everything I told him.
For four months, Luke and I met at the agency, then at libraries, diners, parks, and supervised outings.
I kept waiting for the difficult teenager everyone had warned me about.
He never appeared.
Instead, I saw a boy who noticed little things.
Once, I mentioned that Grace had hated raisins.
I didn’t think anything of it.
Three weeks later, Luke pushed a cookie across the café table toward me.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I checked. No raisins.”
I stared at him.
