Rowan stared at her.  “An accident?”

“She arrived without identification. She was unconscious and accompanied by an adult male who left before staff could gather all the necessary information. Her condition is now stable, but she has suffered a head injury and multiple fractures. She has been sedated.”

Rowan leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his face. Anger rose first, sharp and immediate, because the children had been abandoned. Then, beneath it, something more confused and hesitant emerged, for it was clear that Delaney hadn’t left that house intending to disappear for days. But the compassion he felt didn’t erase what had happened.

He went out into the hallway and called his lawyer, Avery Kline.

“Avery, I need to take urgent action regarding childcare,”  Rowan said as soon as she answered the phone.  “They’ve been left alone for days. My daughter is in the hospital. Social services have already been notified.”

Avery wasted no time.  “Send me all the reports you receive. We’ll file them first thing tomorrow morning.”

When Rowan returned to Elsie’s room, Micah was sitting beside the bed on a chair too big for him, watching his sister sleep with the grave, weary attention of someone who felt responsible for preventing the world from falling apart again.

“Dad?”  he asked.  “Can I stay with you all the time now?”

Rowan crouched down beside him.  “From now on, you’ll stay with me as long as you need to.”

The weight a child should never carry

They spent the night at the hospital. Micah eventually fell asleep on a folding chair under a thin blanket, and Rowan, sitting between his children, listened to the rhythm of Elsie’s IV drip and the muffled sounds of the nurses taking turns just behind the door.

In the morning, a pediatric therapist from the hospital met with him.

She spoke softly, but her words carried a chilling truth.  “Your son has taken on far too much responsibility. He has shown incredible courage, but that also means he likely carries within him a fear that is not typical of a child. Your daughter may cling to him because he has become her refuge. We must begin to help her now, not later.”

Rowan nodded, absorbing each word like a survival instruction.  “Tell me what they need.”

“Routine. Predictability. Calm. Honest explanations without intimate details. No promises you can’t keep.”

It was this revelation that affected him the most, because until that moment, Rowan had believed that love would be enough if he gave enough of it, quickly enough. Now, he understood that love had to be expressed through breakfast served on time, bedtime stories, folded laundry, precisely dosed medication, and sitting on the floor at two in the morning when a six-year-old child woke up crying.

When Elsie opened her eyes later that afternoon, weak and confused but still present, Micah burst into tears for the first time since Rowan had come home.

He carefully climbed onto the edge of the bed and whispered,  “I missed you.”

Elsie held out her small, tired hand to him.  “I was sleepy.”

Rowan smoothed their hair back and said,  “You’re both safe now.”