Part 1: The Request

The morning the doctor said David had only weeks left, our home seemed to lose all sound.

For fifteen years, we had built a steady  marriage and raised two children. I believed I knew him completely. But after the diagnosis, David became distant, staring at the ceiling with a fear deeper than his illness.

Whenever I asked what was wrong, he said he was tired.

Three weeks into hospice, he reached beneath his pillow and handed me an old photograph. A solemn sixteen-year-old girl stared back at me.

“Her name is Grace,” he said. “I need you to  adopt her before I die.”

The request froze me.

I demanded to know who she was. David only asked me to trust him and said she had no one else.

“Is she your daughter?”

He closed his eyes as a tear slid down his cheek.

“Please don’t make