I boarded that plane as just another traveler. I disembarked holding a child the world had forgotten.
It happened so quietly—a preschooler slipping into my lap mid-flight, his body relaxing against mine like I was a missing piece. No announcements. No frantic parents. Just the hum of engines and my racing heart.
“Maybe he’s confused,” I told myself. But at the gate, the truth was undeniable: Jacob had no one. No reports. No history. Just me, the woman he’d randomly chosen as his anchor.
Social workers called it a miracle he wasn’t scared. I called it terrifying. What kind of life leaves a child so desperate for comfort that he clings to the first warm body he finds?
Yet as months passed, terror softened into something sweeter. The way he’d pat my cheek when I worked late. How he’d whisper “my person” when I tucked him in.
The day he asked if we were forever, I finally understood: sometimes love doesn’t arrive with fanfare. Sometimes it’s just a small hand in the dark, trusting you’ll hold on.
