At my dad’s funeral, the chapel felt like it was holding its breath. People kept their eyes on the floor or stared into their folded hands like they might find answers there. The air was thick with the smell of lilies and old wood, the kind of smell that sinks into your clothes and stays. Every sound felt too loud—the soft shuffle of shoes, a quiet cough, the faint click of someone’s ring tapping against a wooden pew. I sat very still, my palms pressed together so tightly my fingers

I’m Alan. I’m 23 years old. And for most of my life, there was one label that followed me everywhere, like it was stamped on my file in permanent ink: foster kid. I grew up knowing that fact before I even understood what it meant. Foster care wasn’t a chapter in my life—it was the background noise of my childhood. I learned early not to ask too many questions, because questions usually led to silence, awkward looks, or answers that felt unfinished. I moved through a few placements. Some were

I had spent my life as a pediatric surgeon, fixing broken hearts and saving children who had no one else. But nothing—nothing—could have prepared me for the day I met Owen. He was six years old, lying in an oversized hospital bed that made him look smaller than he already was. His eyes were too big for his pale, fragile face, and his chart might as well have been a death sentence: congenital heart defect. Critical. The kind of illness that steals childhood and replaces it with fear. I remember