I lowered my head.
“Thank you, Dad,” I whispered.
Thank you for handwritten notes beside our lunches.
For learning to braid my hair after accidentally tying half of it into a knot.
For staying awake through fevers, nightmares, heartbreaks, and school projects.
Most of all, thank you for raising five children who did not share your blood and never once making us feel that we belonged to you less because of it.
Thomas had never been my biological father.
But inside our house, that distinction meant nothing.
He was simply Dad.
And he had been since I was five.
The Man Who Chose Me
The first time I met Thomas, he carried a worn pink teddy bear with one button eye.
He crouched beside me.
“Your mother says you’re very particular,” he said. “This bear seems demanding too. I thought you two might understand each other.”
I took the bear.
