Two days later the hospital cleared them, the background check came back clean, and I carried two small bags of their things through my front door with Mason on his feet beside me and Daisy hiding behind my leg.

I had spent those two days turning my spare room into something that might, someday, feel like theirs — two new beds, soft bedding, a shelf of books and toys, a nightlight shaped like a moon.

But Mason did not look at the toys.

He stood in the doorway of that bright room, and his eyes went straight past all of it to the kitchen down the hall, and he asked me the question that told me everything about the last three years of his life.

“Is there food here?” It was not a child asking what was for dinner.