Noah squints at her, then looks at us, a frown on his face. “You guys can’t get divorced. I don’t think I’d like that very much.”

“Lily,” Bear scolds. “Stop upsetting your brother.”

“I’m not upsetting him! I merely stated a fact, and he drew his own conclusions from it.”

“We’re not getting divorced,” I say to Noah. “Bear wouldn’t know what to do without me.”

Bear shoves me away. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. I’d do just fine. Probably. Mostly. I’d last at least a week before I’d let you come crawling back.”

“Oh god,” Lily moans. “Dad’s got that sappy look on his face again.”

“That means he loves Papa,” Noah says, grinning at me.

“That it does,” I agree.

“Who loves Papa?” a smaller voice asks before he pushes his way between Lily and Noah, gazing up with interest at everyone in the room.

Caleb Thompson. Our little fighter.

Dom had found him first in a shithole of a hovel outside of Seafare. There’d been a call to do a welfare check on a kid who hadn’t been to school in over a week. Dom had already been in the neighborhood and had stopped by, even though it hadn’t exactly been in his job description anymore as a detective.

Caleb’s parents had both overdosed on heroin. The mother was dead, having choked to death on her own vomit. The father had had a heart attack and was barely hanging on. Caleb was in a closet, hugging a dirty stuffed bear. He told Dom that he’d run out of crackers, even though he’d tried to save as many as he could as he didn’t know when his mom and dad would wake up.

His fifth birthday had been three days earlier.

Otter and I were still registered as foster parents.

Dom called us later that day, asking if we could meet with him at the station.

We were led to an interrogation room where we found them both, Caleb in his arms, face hidden in the big man’s neck, stuffed bear clutched against his chest. He was a tiny thing, looking like he needed to be fed immediately. He had pale skin and dirty blonde hair. His eyes were the brightest green but looked dulled in the harsh light overhead.

“I need you,” Dom had told us, looking a little haunted. “I need you to help me.”

Caleb’s father had died the next day.

They looked for family. They were required to, of course. And, as often happened in cases like this, they found nothing.

Caleb came to stay with us at the Green Monstrosity.

And he never left.

It took a long time, but now, five years later, he was ours just as much as Lily and Noah were. They’d taken to him quickly, circling around him, holding him close. He’d been wary of the both of them at first, but that had passed sooner than we’d thought. Lily had given him piggyback rides. Noah had made him cookies. He loved them completely.