The steering wheel was so cold it felt like it was biting into my skin, but I hadn’t turned the heat on in an hour. The cold was a good distraction. It was sharp, real. It was something to focus on besides the empty passenger seat, the suffocating silence, and the fact that it was 7 PM on Christmas Eve, and I was driving aimlessly down a deserted back road, running from a house that felt more like a tomb.

For three years, Christmas had been a ghost. Not a holiday, but a 24-hour memorial for what I’d lost. Three years since a delivery driver, more interested in his phone than the road, had vaporized my world. My wife, Catherine. My six-year-old daughter, Sophie. Gone. And I, Michael Brennan, former sheriff’s deputy, was left to haunt the wreckage.

So I drove. I drove for hours, the swirling snow on Route 47 a hypnotic blur. The truck’s engine was the only sound, a low rumble against the howl of the wind. I was just trying to get through the night. Just trying to outrun the memories of tinsel, burnt cookies, and a little girl’s laughter that used to fill every corner of my life.

Then I saw them.

At first, my grief-fogged brain didn’t process it. Two smudges in the darkness, just past the edge of my high beams. Deer? A pile of discarded trash? The snow was coming down hard, a blizzard in the making, and visibility was a joke. But as my truck crawled closer, the smudges took shape.

They were small. Too small.

They were children.

My heart didn’t just stop; it seized. I slammed the brakes, the ABS grinding as the truck fishtailed on the ice. My hands flew to the gear shift, jamming it into park. Hazard lights. Flashlight. My old deputy training kicked in, a sudden, cold jolt of adrenaline cutting through the fog of my despair.

I threw open the door and stepped into a world of white, stinging wind. “Hey!” I shouted, the wind ripping the word from my mouth.

They were huddled together, two little girls in matching pink coats—coats that were criminally thin for this weather. They were holding hands, their backs to the endless, dark woods. The smaller one was crying, a sound that was barely audible but tore right through me. The other, her sister, I guessed, had an arm wrapped around her, trying to shield her, trying to be brave.

My blood ran colder than the snow soaking through my jeans.

“Hey there,” I said again, softer this time, moving into the light of my own headlights. I felt like I was approaching a wounded animal. “Are you okay? Where are your parents?”

The braver one looked up. Her eyes were enormous, brown, and filled with a terror that no child should ever know. Snow was caked in her dark hair, and her lips… God, her lips were turning blue.

“Our aunt,” she said, her voice a tiny, trembling thing. “She said to wait here. She said someone would come for us.”

I scanned the desolate road. Nothing. No houses for miles. No broken-down car. No footprints but my own. Just woods, darkness, and the relentless, unforgiving snow. We were twenty miles from the nearest town.

My stomach dropped into my boots. Someone would come for us.

“Sweetheart,” I said, forcing my voice to stay level, fighting the rage that was building in my throat. “How long have you been waiting here?”

The quieter one, the one who had been sobbing, spoke. Her voice was so small, a fragile whisper I had to lean in to hear. “Since… since the sun was up.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. I glanced at my watch. 7:12 PM. The sun had set over three hours ago. In this weather, “since the sun was up” could mean eight, maybe nine hours. These children had been abandoned on the side of a frozen road, in a blizzard, on Christmas Eve.

My hands clenched into fists at my sides. I wanted to find the person who did this. I wanted to… I took a deep, shuddering breath. Not now. Focus.

“My name is Michael,” I said, forcing a gentleness I didn’t feel. “What are your names?”

“I’m Grace,” the brave one said, her body shaking violently. “This is my sister, Faith.”

“Those are beautiful names. Listen, Grace, Faith. It is very, very cold out here. And it’s not safe. How about you two come sit in my warm truck while we figure this out?”

They exchanged a look. The “stranger danger” look. And my heart broke all over again. They were terrified of me, but they were freezing to death.

I slowly pulled out my phone. My lock screen. An old picture of me, smiling, in my deputy’s uniform. Catherine had taken it. “I used to be a police officer,” I said, kneeling in the snow, getting down to their level. “I promise. I just want to help you get somewhere safe and warm. You must be so cold.”

Grace looked at her sister. A whole, silent conversation passed between them. Then, with a gravity that was far too old for her small frame, she nodded.

I helped them in, one by one. They were light as feathers, their tiny bodies trembling so hard it felt like they might shake apart. I cranked the heat until it was blasting, grabbing the emergency blanket from under the seat and wrapping it around both of them. They huddled together, two tiny birds in a nest of worn-out fleece.

I had a thermos of hot chocolate. A habit from my patrol days. It was probably lukewarm by now, but it was wet and warm. I poured some into the lid. “Here. Share this. Carefully.”

As they passed it back and forth, their small, chapped hands touching, their fairness with each other practiced and profound, I tried to get a signal on my phone. Nothing. The storm must have knocked out the tower.

“Can you tell me your aunt’s name?” I asked, putting the truck in gear and slowly, carefully, pulling back onto the icy road.

“Aunt Carol,” Grace said, her voice a little stronger now with the heat. “But… but she’s not really our aunt. She just told us to call her that.”

The story came out in fragments, each piece a tiny, sharp blade twisting in my gut. Their mother, Angela, dead six months ago. A sudden aneurysm. No father in the picture. Bounced between foster homes. The first one was “okay” but “couldn’t keep them.” The second had too many kids. And then… Aunt Carol.

“She didn’t like us very much,” Faith whispered from inside the blanket. “She said we ate too much food.”

“And we were too loud,” Grace added, her protective streak flaring. “Even when we tried to be really, really quiet. Even when we whispered.”

My jaw was so tight I thought my teeth would crack. I knew the system. I knew “Aunt Carol” was getting a check for these girls. A check she was collecting while starving them, and now, abandoning them.

“She got money for keeping us,” Grace confirmed, her voice old and tired. “We heard her on the phone. She said we ‘weren’t worth the check.’ This morning… this morning she just put us in the car. Drove us out here. She said our ‘real family’ was coming to get us. That we just had to wait.”

“But nobody came,” Faith whispered, and a fresh round of tears started. “I thought… I thought maybe we were bad. And that was why nobody wanted us.”

I had to pull the truck over. I couldn’t see the road through the sudden, hot blur in my own eyes. I put the truck in park, the wipers struggling against the snow, and I turned to face them.

“Listen to me,” I said, and my voice was raw. “Listen to me, both of you. You are not bad. What happened to you is not your fault. Do you understand? Adults are supposed to protect children. Not… not this. What ‘Aunt Carol’ did was a crime. And I am going to make sure she never, ever does it to anyone else.”

They just stared at me, their eyes wide and unblinking, as if they were trying to decide if I was just another adult lying to them.

The Milbrook Police Station was a small brick building, its windows glowing against the storm. It was operating on a skeleton crew, just as I expected. Deputy Janet Walker was at the desk, looking tired. She was a good cop. We’d worked together for years before… well, before.

“Michael,” she said, her eyes widening in surprise. “What on earth brings you out in this? I thought…” She trailed off, her gaze dropping to the two small figures clinging to my hands. “And who are these sweethearts?”

I explained it in clipped, professional tones. The old deputy in me taking over because the man, the father, was too full of rage. Route 47. Pink coats. “Since the sun was up.” With every detail, Janet’s face went from tired to thunderous.

She got them juice and some stale crackers from the breakroom, and the girls sat on a bench, finally looking safe, finally looking warm. They were playing with a puzzle, Grace patiently showing Faith where the pieces went. Just… being kids.

Janet pulled me aside. “The roads are impassible in half the county, Michael. I’ve got two cruisers stuck out on 12-B.”

“What about CPS? Emergency foster?”

Janet shook her head, and my heart sank. “All full. It’s Christmas Eve, Mike. Every emergency bed in a fifty-mile radius is taken. The only option tonight… the only one… is the county shelter.”

She didn’t have to say more. We both knew what the shelter was. A large, chaotic room filled with cots, smelling of disinfectant and despair. It was loud, it was scary, and it was filled with adults struggling with demons these girls shouldn’t even know existed. It was no place for two five-year-olds who had just been thrown away like trash.

I looked through the breakroom window. Grace was pointing at a puzzle piece, and Faith was clapping her hands. They were a set. A perfect, tiny, broken set.

The words were out of my mouth before I even thought about them. Before I processed the tidal wave of what they meant.

“I’ll take them.”

Janet’s eyebrows shot up. “Michael. Are you… are you sure? It’s Christmas. I know how hard…”

“I’m sure,” I said, cutting her off. “I’m still certified, right? From… from before.”

Years ago, before Sophie, Catherine and I had struggled to conceive. We’d gotten our foster certification, thinking that was our path. Then our little miracle came, and the certification just gathered dust. I’d kept it current, though. A stupid, bureaucratic detail. A renewal fee I paid every year for a life I no longer had. Until tonight.

“You’re sure?” Janet asked again, her voice soft now.

I looked at the girls. “They need somewhere safe. I have space. They are not going to that shelter.”

The paperwork was a blur. Emergency placement. Given the circumstances, Janet pushed it through. An hour later, I was buckling two very small, very quiet children into the back of my truck. But this time, we were going home. To my home. The tomb.

And I had no idea what I was doing.

“Is this your house?” Faith’s small voice piped up from the back as we pulled into the driveway.

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s pretty,” Grace said. “Like a house in a storybook. A happy house.”

I had to swallow, hard, against the lump in my throat. If only she knew. “Come on,” I said, unbuckling them. “Let’s get you inside.”

I turned the heat up, the furnace kicking on with a roar. The house was cold. I’d been letting it stay cold. The silence was overwhelming, amplified by the presence of these two small intruders. I showed them the kitchen, the living room. They walked on their tiptoes, as if afraid to make a sound, as if they were waiting to be told they were “too loud” again.

Then we got to the upstairs hallway. And my feet stopped.

There was the guest room. The master bedroom. And there… at the end of the hall… was her door. Sophie’s door.

I hadn’t opened it in two years. Not since the day I’d packed a few of her things for the… for the funeral. The rest of it… it was just as she’d left it. A museum. A shrine to my own failure to protect her.

My hand was trembling as I reached for the knob. These girls needed a place to sleep. A real bed. Not the couch. And the guest room… the guest room was just a room. This room… this room had been magic.

I took a breath. “This… this was my daughter’s room,” I whispered, and turned the handle.

The air inside was still. It smelled faintly of crayons and strawberry shampoo. Her favorite teddy bear, Barnaby, was sitting on the pillow. Her drawings of our family—three smiling stick figures under a yellow sun—were still tacked to the bulletin board. The calendar on her wall was still turned to December, three years ago. On the 25th, in her shaky, six-year-old handwriting, she had written “KRISMUS!” with crayon stars all around it.

I couldn’t breathe. This was a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake.

The twins stood in the doorway, not daring to step inside. “Whose room is this?” Grace asked again, sensing the shift in me.

My throat was tight. “It belonged to my daughter, Sophie. She… she’s not here anymore.”

Faith, the quiet one, the intuitive one, did something that nearly undid me. She stepped forward, slipped her tiny, cold hand into my big, trembling one, and just held it.

“Is she in heaven?” she asked, so matter-of-fact. “With our mommy?”

The innocent question, the casual acceptance of a loss that mirrored my own, broke something open. A tear, the first one in months, slipped down my cheek.

“Yes,” I managed. “Yes, I think they’re probably friends up there. And I think… I think Sophie would be really happy to know you’re using her room.”

“What was she like?” Grace asked, finally stepping inside, her eyes wide as she took in the pink walls and the shelf full of books.

I had to stop. I had to look at a picture of her on the dresser, laughing, missing her two front teeth. “She was… bright,” I said, my voice thick. “And funny. She loved to draw, just like… well, I see you like to draw,” I said, gesturing to a crayon drawing I’d seen peeking from Grace’s pocket at the station. “And she was always asking questions about everything. Just like you, Grace. She would have liked you both. Very much.”

That night, I made them grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. It was the only thing I could find in my depleted pantry. I’d been living on frozen dinners for so long I’d forgotten how to cook for other people. But the girls ate like it was a five-star feast.

“At Aunt Carol’s,” Faith said quietly, her eyes on her plate, “we only got one meal a day. She said we were too expensive.”

I got up, my back to them, and made them each another sandwich. My hands were shaking again, but this time it was with a white-hot, focused rage.

I found some of Sophie’s old pajamas. Unicorns for Faith, who actually smiled, a real, bright smile that lit up her whole face. A set with stars for Grace, who held them like they were spun gold. While they changed, I started a load of laundry, washing their wet, threadbare clothes. Their shoes… their shoes had holes in the soles, stuffed with newspaper. Newspaper.

As I tucked them into Sophie’s bed—they insisted on sleeping together, curled up like two kittens—Grace asked the question that would haunt me.

“Mr. Michael… we don’t have presents for tomorrow. Santa doesn’t know we’re here. He probably went to Aunt Carol’s house… but we weren’t good enough for her to keep. So maybe… maybe we weren’t good enough for presents, either.”

The cold, matter-of-fact way she said it. The acceptance that she didn’t deserve good things. I knelt by the bed, my heart aching.

“You know what?” I said, trying to sound cheerful, trying to sound like a father again. “Santa is very, very smart. And sometimes, he leaves extra presents at people’s houses, just in case someone special might need them. Why don’t we check in the morning? And see.”

Her small nod was full of doubt.

After they were asleep, I went to the garage. In the back corner, under a dusty tarp, was a box. A big box. The presents I had bought for Sophie that last Christmas. Presents for a six-year-old, a future I had been planning. A science kit for the “why” questions. Art supplies for the drawings I loved. Books she would grow into. I’d never been able to return them. I’d never been able to give them away. They’d just… waited.

For three years, they’d been waiting. Maybe they’d been waiting for tonight.

With shaking hands, I brought them inside. I dusted them off. And I placed them under the tree. The tree I’d only put up because my neighbor had shamed me into it. It was bare, just a sad, dark triangle in the corner. But with presents underneath it, it looked… less lonely.

I went to my own bed, not the recliner where I’d been sleeping for three years, but my actual bed. I left my door open, just in case. In case they had nightmares. In case they woke up scared in a strange room, in a dead girl’s room, and thought they were alone again.

The whimper came at 3 AM.

It was Faith. I was in her room before I was even fully awake. She was sitting up, tears streaming down her face, her whole body shaking. Grace was holding her, trying to comfort her, but she was crying too.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I dreamed… I dreamed we were back on the road,” Faith sobbed, launching herself into my arms. “And it was so cold. And nobody came. Nobody ever came.”

I gathered her up, and Grace immediately pressed against my other side, clinging to my shirt. I held them both.

“You’re safe now,” I whispered, my voice rough with sleep and emotion. “You’re not on that road. You’re here. You’re warm. And you are safe. I promise.”

“But what if you decide you don’t want us either?” Grace’s voice was small, muffled against my chest. “What if we’re too much trouble? Aunt Carol said nobody would ever want us. Because we’re too much work.”

How do you un-say something like that? How do you convince two children who have been thrown away that they are worth keeping?

“Listen to me,” I said, pulling back so I could look them in the eyes. “What Aunt Carol did, and what she said, was wrong. It was a lie. You are not too much trouble. You are not too much work. You are two brave, and kind, and smart little girls. And you deserve to be loved and protected. And as long as you need somewhere to stay… you can stay here. Okay?”

They nodded, their eyes searching mine for the lie. I just held them, right there in Sophie’s room, until their breathing evened out, until they fell back asleep, one on each side of me. I sat guard against their nightmares, the way I wished someone could have sat guard against mine.

Christmas morning came with whispers. And then a giggle.

I found them in the living room, staring at the pile of presents under the tree. Their eyes were as wide as saucers.

“Santa found us,” Faith breathed, as if it were the greatest miracle she’d ever seen. “He knew we were here.”

“He always does,” I said, and to my own surprise, I was smiling. A real smile. And it didn’t hurt. Not as much as I thought it would.

They opened their presents with a joy that was infectious, a beautiful, wild thing. They shrieked with delight over the art supplies, Grace immediately clutched the books to her chest, and they both hugged the two dolls I’d bought for Sophie. “Sisters!” Faith declared. “Just like us.”

Grace, my practical, old-soul Grace, carefully saved every piece of wrapping paper. She smoothed it out, folded it into neat squares. “We can use this again,” she said seriously. “To wrap presents for other people. When we have presents to give.”

The casual optimism of that. The “when.” Not “if.” The assumption that there would be a someday, a future where they had enough to give away. I had to go to the kitchen, pretending to make coffee, just so I could compose myself.

Janet arrived around noon. She had bags of clothes, real winter coats, boots without holes, and news.

She pulled me aside while the girls were in the other room, trying on new sweaters, exclaiming over the bright colors.

“We found her,” Janet said, her voice quiet and hard. “Carol Hutchkins. She’s been arrested. She admitted it, Michael. Admitted everything. Said she’d been planning it for weeks. She’d already filed a report with CPS yesterday saying the girls had ‘run away.’ She was going to keep collecting the checks until someone figured it out.”

“What happens to them now?” I asked, watching Faith do a little spin in a blue sweater.

Janet’s face was grim. “Their case will be reviewed. But, Michael… they have no one. Their mother was an only child. Father terminated his rights at birth. They’ll go back into the system. And…” She paused, her eyes full of pity. “They’ll probably be separated. Most families don’t want to take on two at once. Especially not two who’ve been through…”

“No.”

The word was out before she’d even finished. It was quiet, but it was as solid and unmovable as a mountain.

“Michael…”

“No,” I said again, louder this time. “They stay together.”

“That’s not always possible, you know that.”

“Then I’ll keep them,” I said. “Both of them. I’ll keep them.”

Janet studied me, her gaze penetrating. “That’s a big decision, Michael. A permanent decision. You’ve been through so much.”

“So have they,” I said, my voice hardening. “And they’ve been through it alone. At least I had good years. At least I had a family to grieve. These girls have had nothing but loss, one after another. They deserve better. They deserve… a chance.”

The days that followed were a blur. My silent, empty house was suddenly, shockingly, alive. It was filled with the sound of cartoon theme songs, of two sets of feet running down the hall, of questions. So many questions.

Faith’s drawings started appearing on the refrigerator, taped right next to Sophie’s old ones. Grace’s voice filled the evenings, reading aloud from her new books, her brow furrowed in concentration. The kitchen table, my monument to silence and frozen dinners, became a place for homework and grilled cheese and arguments over who got the last cookie.

I found myself doing things I hadn’t done in three years. Cooking real dinners. Packing lunches. Checking under beds for monsters—Grace insisted she was too old for that, but she always looked relieved when I did it anyway. Reading bedtime stories. “Just one more chapter, Mr. Michael,” Faith would plead.

The nightmares continued. Faith would dream of the cold. Grace would dream of being taken away from her sister. But I was always there. I became their lighthouse in the dark.

I called my grief counselor. I told him everything. He listened patiently before asking me the one question that mattered.

“Are you considering this because you miss being a father, Michael? Or is it because these specific children need you?”

The answer came without hesitation. “Both,” I said. “But… it’s not about replacing Sophie. No one could ever do that. She’ll always be my daughter. This… this is about them. It’s about Grace and Faith. They’re… they’re good kids. They’re amazing kids. And every single adult in their lives has failed them. I can’t be the next one.”

On New Year’s Eve, we watched the ball drop on TV (a recording, since they’d never make it to midnight). Faith was curled up against my side, half-asleep. Grace, on my other, was watching the screen intently.

“Mr. Michael?” Faith’s voice was sleepy. “Are we… are we going to have to leave? Soon?”

Grace, on my other side, went perfectly still. She didn’t look at me, but I could feel her entire body go tense, waiting for the answer she’d been too afraid to ask.

I’d been wrestling with it all week. The fear. The responsibility. The sheer, crushing weight of it. Was I ready? Could I do this? Was I just setting us all up for more heartbreak?

I looked at the TV, at the strangers cheering in Times Square, and then I looked at the two little girls who had somehow, in the span of one week, burrowed their way into the wreckage of my heart and started to build a fire.

“No,” I said, and my voice was firm. “You’re not going to have to leave. Not if you don’t want to.”

Grace’s head whipped around. “Really?” Her voice was a small, hopeful squeak.

“Really,” I said, pulling them both closer. “I’ve… I’ve spoken to Janet. And some other people. We’re going to make it official. If that’s what you want. Would you… would you like to stay here? Permanently? With me? Become a… a family?”

Faith didn’t even answer. She just threw her arms around my neck and squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe. Grace took a second longer, as if processing the words, and then she joined the hug, burying her face in my shoulder. And for the first time in three years, I felt something other than grief swell in my chest. It wasn’t happiness, not yet. That would take time. But it was purpose. It was hope. It was the distinct, terrifying, and beautiful possibility that my broken life wasn’t over.

“We can be your daughters?” Faith whispered against my neck. “Real daughters? Forever and ever?”

“Forever and ever,” I promised, holding them tight as the fake crowd on TV counted down to a new year.

The adoption process was six months of hell. Home visits, where social workers poked into every corner of my life, of my house, of my grief. They looked at Sophie’s room, which the girls had now claimed, their own drawings and books slowly, respectfully, starting to mix with Sophie’s things.

There were court dates, where the girls dressed in their best clothes and held my hands so tightly my fingers went numb. There was paperwork, mountains of it, that I attacked with a singular, ferocious determination. I had already lost one family. I would not lose this one.

And slowly, life began. Grace joined the school reading club. Faith’s art teacher called me, amazed, to say she had a rare, natural talent.

And then, in the spring, it happened. Grace was struggling with a math problem. “Dad,” she said, not even looking up. “Can you help me with this?”

The pencil fell from my hand. She froze, her eyes wide, as if she’d just cursed. “I… I mean… Mr. Michael…”

“It’s okay,” I said, my voice thick. “Dad is… Dad is fine.”

Faith, never one to be left out, beamed. “Okay, Dad!”

I had to excuse myself. I went to the kitchen and leaned against the counter, and I cried. But this time, the tears weren’t just for what I’d lost. They were for what I’d found. Joy and sorrow, all mixed up. The proof that I could be a father again without betraying the daughter I’d lost. My heart, it turned out, was bigger than I thought. There was room for all of them.

The next Christmas Eve, we started a new tradition. We drove out to that same spot on Route 47. But this time, we weren’t running. We installed a weatherproof box on a post, filled with blankets, hand warmers, food, and a small sign with my number. “If you need help, you’re not alone.”

Then we went and served dinner at the community center. The girls, my daughters, insisted on giving away some of their own new toys to the kids at the shelter.

That night, as I tucked them in—they still shared Sophie’s room, by choice, saying they slept better together—Faith said something that stopped me in my tracks.

“Daddy,” she said, her eyes sleepy. “I think Sophie sent us to you.”

Grace nodded, her face serious in the dim light. “So you wouldn’t be alone on Christmas anymore. And so we wouldn’t be alone either. She knew we needed each other.”

I kissed both their foreheads, my throat too tight to speak. “I think you might be right,” I finally managed.

“Is it okay that we talk about her?” Grace asked, always the worrier. “Does it make you too sad?”

“No, sweetheart,” I said, smoothing her hair. “It makes me happy that you want to know her. She’s part of our story. Just like your mom is. We can talk about them whenever you want.”

Later, standing in their doorway, watching them sleep, I whispered a “thank you.” To Catherine, for teaching me how to love. To Sophie, for showing me joy. And to Angela, their mother, for bringing these two incredible souls into the world.

Six months after the adoption was finalized, it was Father’s Day. The girls came running into the garage, where I was trying to organize a decade’s worth of junk.

“Dad! Dad! Look!”

They had cards. Grace’s was covered in her neat, careful handwriting, a long letter about how I’d saved them, how I’d chosen them, how I was the “best dad in the history of the world.”

Faith’s was a drawing. A beautiful, vibrant drawing of our family. Me, tall. Her and Grace, holding my hands. And up in the sky, a smiling angel with blonde hair. She’d labeled her “Sophie.”

But it was what Faith said next that finished me.

“Our teacher asked us to write about our heroes. I wrote about you. Because you didn’t just save us from the cold, Daddy. You saved us from being alone forever.”

“You gave us a family,” Grace added, her voice thick with an emotion she was too young to have. “When everyone else gave up on us.”

I dropped to my knees and pulled them both into a hug, right there on the dusty garage floor. Three broken hearts, found in a snowstorm. Three souls who learned that families aren’t always born. Sometimes they’re found. Sometimes they’re forged in the cold, dark night.

“You saved me, too,” I whispered into their hair, the truth of it hitting me with the force of a tidal wave. “You two saved me, too.”

The hole in my heart from losing Catherine and Sophie will never fully heal. I know that. They are part of me, always. But Grace and Faith, my daughters, they didn’t replace what I lost. They showed me that a broken heart isn’t a dead heart. It can still love. It can still grow. It can still be a home.

Love, I’ve learned, isn’t a finite resource. It doesn’t run out. It multiplies. It transforms a grieving man and two abandoned girls into something new. Something whole.

Something called a family.