The days after the funeral blurred.
Nora moved through them quietly, as if she were walking through water.
There were meetings.
Paperwork.
Soft voices in rooms that smelled like coffee and copier ink.
A woman from Child Services explained things gently.
"You don't have any immediate family able to take you in," she said. "But there are people who have stepped forward."
Stepped forward.
As if she were something dropped.
The Callahans had been friends of her father for years. Not close enough for holidays. Close enough for barbecues. Close enough to know her name.
Close enough to say yes.
The first time she sat at their dining table, she kept her hands folded in her lap.
Mrs. Callahan smiled too much — not falsely, just nervously.
Mr. Callahan spoke steadily, like he didn't want to overwhelm her.
Eli didn't say anything at all.
He watched her.
Not curiously.
Not suspiciously.
Just… attentively.
Like he understood silence.
Weeks passed.
The word temporary disappeared.
In its place came a new word.
Adoption.
Nora heard it from the hallway.
"We don't want her to feel like a guest," Mrs. Callahan was saying. "If she stays, she stays."
Stays.
The word lodged somewhere deep inside her chest.
That night, Mrs. Callahan knocked softly on her bedroom door.
"We want you to know," she said carefully, sitting on the edge of the bed, "that this is your home. Not for now. Not until something else is figured out. Just… your home."
Nora nodded.
Home had always felt like a fragile thing.
A lease.
A paycheck.
A heartbeat.
Now it was being offered like something steady.
She didn't know what to do with that.
The adoption was finalized in early spring.
There was a courthouse.
A judge who smiled.
Papers signed in careful ink.
When the judge asked if she understood what this meant, Nora hesitated only a second before nodding.
She understood.
It meant she wouldn't be moved again.
It meant someone chose her.
It meant her name would change.
Nora Bennett became Nora Callahan.
The sound of it felt unfamiliar.
Like trying on shoes that hadn't softened yet.
Afterward, there were pictures.
Mrs. Callahan cried.
Mr. Callahan squeezed her shoulder.
Eli stood beside her, close but not touching.
"You're stuck with us now," he said quietly.
It was the first thing he'd said directly to her in weeks.
She looked at him.
There was no teasing in his voice.
No pity either.
Just something steady.
"Yeah," she replied.
And for the first time since the phone rang after midnight,
the word didn't scare her.