After my best friend passed away, I took in her son and raised him as my own, pouring into him all the love I’d gone without as a child. For twelve years, we were a complete family. Then one night, my wife shook me awake in a panic, saying she’d discovered something our son had been hiding. When I saw it, I stood there frozen, tears filling my eyes.

We endured it together.

The day we turned eighteen, standing outside with nothing but worn duffel bags at our feet, Nora looked at me with tears shining in her eyes.

“No matter what happens, Ollie,” she said, squeezing my hand, “we’ll always be family. Promise me.”

“I promise,” I replied—and I meant it with my whole heart.

And we kept that promise. Even when life pulled us into different cities, when weeks passed too quickly and calls became shorter, we never truly drifted apart.

Nora worked as a waitress. I bounced between jobs until I landed steady work at a used bookstore. We stayed connected in the way only people who’ve survived something together can.

When she found out she was pregnant, she called me crying—happy tears.
“Ollie, I’m having a baby,” she said. “You’re going to be an uncle.”

I held Leo for the first time just hours after he was born. His fists were tiny and wrinkled, his dark hair soft, his eyes still learning how to focus.

Nora looked exhausted and glowing all at once. When she placed him in my arms, something inside me cracked open.