My stepson, Ethan, is seventeen now. I’ve been part of his life since he was fourteen — since the year his mother left the country, saying it was “for work,” and gradually disappeared from his everyday world. In the beginning, it was meant to be short-term. A few months, maybe a year at most. But time stretched on. Birthdays passed without her. School events came and went. Long stretches of silence were broken only by hurried video calls that felt more like obligations than conversations.

Somewhere along the way, without any formal decision being made, I became the one who stayed.

I became the parent who showed up.

I drove him to school every morning, even when it meant adjusting my own work schedule and leaving earlier than I should have. When he outgrew his clothes, I replaced them — learning which brands he liked, which ones he thought were “cringe,” and which hoodies he refused to part with. I cooked meals, washed clothes, attended parent-teacher conferences, and stayed awake late into the night when he missed curfew.

I knew his moods before he spoke. I knew the snacks he reached for when he was stressed, the songs he played on repeat when he was upset, the way his shoulders slumped when something at school bothered him but he didn’t want to talk about it.

I tried to do all of it with care. With patience. With love.