Chapter 7 - THE FIRST CRISIS AT MIDNIGHT
The sun dipped below the tree line around 7:30 PM, painting the sky in brilliant shades of bruised purple and fiery orange. Getting five children under seven through dinner, bath time, and bedtime routine was an absolute, unmitigated logistical disaster that made my previous life as a single, quiet woodworker look like a permanent vacation.
We went through four boxes of macaroni and cheese, spilled an entire gallon of milk across the farmhouse table, and used up every single towel in the linen closet trying to wrangle three toddlers out of a makeshift plastic-bin bathtub.
Yet, by 9:00 PM, an exhausted, miraculous quiet had finally settled over the workshop.
Sam, Chloe, and Maya were fast asleep on the bottom bunks, tangled together in a pile of warm blankets like a litter of sleepy puppies. Baby Toby was snoring softly in his portable bassinet right beside my desk.
Leo was the only one still awake. He sat up on the middle bunk, staring out the high loft window at the bright crescent moon hanging over the pine trees.
I sat at my old drafting desk downstairs, working quietly by the light of a single desk lamp, reviewing the stack of emergency medical forms and school enrollment papers the state had dumped on me before we left the courthouse.
Suddenly, a soft rustle came from the ladder leading up to the bunk beds.
I looked up. Leo poked his head over the edge of the wooden railing, his eyes wide and dark in the dim light.
"Arthur?" he whispered hoarsely.
I stood up immediately, walking over to the base of the ladder. "Hey, buddy. What's wrong? Can't sleep?"
Leo scrambled down the wooden rungs, landing softly on the rubber mat in his dinosaur pajamas. He didn't say anything at first; he just stood there twisting the hem of his pajama top, his breathing coming in shallow, anxious gasps.
"Are we going to wake up tomorrow and find out this was just a dream?" Leo asked, his voice shaking so hard the words barely made it out of his mouth. "Are the social workers going to come back and take us away because we were too loud at dinner?"
My heart shattered into a million pieces. The invisible trauma of the foster system—the constant uprooting, the broken promises, the sudden packing of garbage bags in the middle of the night—was haunting a six-year-old boy who should have only been worried about cartoons and bedtime stories.
I crossed the room in two strides, dropped down to one knee, and pulled Leo tightly against my chest.
"Listen to me, Leo," I whispered fiercely against his hair. "I promise you, on everything I hold sacred, nobody is coming to take you away. This house is bolted to the ground. The doors are locked. And even if the whole world tried to break in, I would stand in front of this door until my last breath."
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Leo buried his face in my shoulder, his small arms wrapping around my neck with a desperate, crushing grip. He didn't cry out loud, but I could feel his little body shaking as the years of terror finally began to wash out of his system.
"I've got you," I repeated softly, rubbing his back. "I've got all of you."
