A month later, Keegan signed a partial athletic scholarship to play Division I soccer at a university three hours from home.

On the morning he left, his suitcases stood lined up by the front door and his enrollment papers sat on the kitchen counter, and I made scrambled eggs and toasted bagels the way I had on thousands of mornings before.

“Got your wallet?” I asked.

“Yes, Dad.”

“Phone charger? Social Security card?”

“Dad.

I’ve got everything.”

On the living room shelf, the state MVP trophy sat next to the framed adoption decree from fourteen years earlier — two completely different documents that had always meant the exact same thing to me.