A Prospective Dad's Heart
“Hmm.”
An intrigued gaze swept over me from behind glasses tinted a faint brown.
“Did I already give you my name? I’m Gabriel Wright.”
The staff member offered his name as if for the first time, pushing up his angular frames.
“Huh? Oh—yes.”
I felt a sudden jolt of unease.
I’d blurted out those words in a rush of anger at that couple’s outrageous behavior, but I still hadn’t fully decided to adopt Luca.
By tomorrow morning I might already be regretting I’d said anything at all…
And this man—wasn’t he part of Mother Superior’s “cartel”?
Make sure the paperwork goes through without a hitch.
That single phone call was the reason I was standing here now. What if this employee reported back to Mother Superior—That young man looks like he wants to adopt the baby—and then what?
Proceed.
I could almost hear her voice. One word from her, and I’d somehow already be Luca’s dad.
I shook my head inwardly.
That was leaping too far.
An entire neighborhood turning into a cult where outsiders never learned what went on inside—that only happened in movies… didn’t it? Reality was usually worse than fiction.
America was vast, state governments couldn’t watch every corner, and this place was especially rural.
So… was I about to become a dad? Was that a good thing or a bad one?
While my imagination ran wild, I somehow found myself seated across from the staff member, an assortment of pamphlets spread out before me.
It felt strangely like déjà vu.
“Now, if you’ll look here—”
Gabriel began circling lines of tiny print on the pamphlets as he explained.
“To legally adopt a child, you’ll need extensive preparation involving lawyers, social workers, doctors, government officials, adoption specialists, and more.”
“Right.”
Every profession he tapped with his pencil seemed to make a little cha-ching sound in my head.
“Hiring them and seeing the process through typically costs around thirty thousand dollars.”
“……Right.”
My weekly pay was eighteen hundred. Roughly eight or nine months’ wages.
“The adoption process itself usually takes close to a year. In your case, though, the matching step between parent and child can be skipped, so it should go a bit faster.”
“I see.”
“Jun, you’re in your mid-twenties, correct? Not married yet?”
“That’s right.”
“As you may know, single people can legally adopt. That said, single-parent adoptions do tend to face a more thorough review.”
I swallowed hard. Even without a deep consultation, I doubted I looked like someone qualified to adopt a baby.
One side of my chest felt hollowed out.
Ah. I’d been wavering, but apparently I really did want to be with Luca.
“…….”
Gabriel could probably guess my situation without me saying a word.
“It may feel overwhelming right now, but if you think of it as preparing slowly, step by step, you’ll be fine.”
“……Is there really no hope for someone like me?”
When I asked in a deflated voice, Gabriel smiled gently and looked at Luca.
“You keep holding the baby so carefully.”
“Ah… I read that you have to support a baby’s head properly.”
“The longer you serve as a foster parent—and the more the baby grows attached to you as he gets bigger—the higher your chances of being able to adopt him.”
A ray of light. Right. Money wasn’t the only condition for adoption.
“Having money and being married doesn’t automatically qualify someone to adopt. The bond between a foster parent who wants to adopt and the child is an extremely important factor.”
“Do I really have a chance?”
Gabriel grinned. A warm smile that cut straight through the cool lenses of his glasses.
“Of course. If you’d already completed the paperwork I just described, you would have been given priority over that couple earlier.”
“…….”
I met Luca’s eyes and held him a little tighter. He gave a tiny yawn.
“Your biggest obstacle, though, will still be the cost. Unfortunately, that’s not something I can help with.”
“I’ll find a way. As quickly as I can.”
“Okay. We’re home.”
When I spoke gently, the baby blinked as if he understood.
I’d read online that babies weren’t supposed to smile properly yet, but every now and then Luca seemed to offer the faintest little curve of his lips.
I smiled for him instead—since he didn’t quite know how yet—then fed him a bottle and put him to sleep.
“You did great today, even though it was cold out.”
Sitting beside him, I stroked his stomach and looked out over the bare living room.
I still couldn’t even begin the adoption application for lack of money, but once I’d saved enough to file, I needed everything ready so the process could move smoothly from that point on.
Just to pass the inspection that this was a suitable environment for a child, I needed far more than one or two things.
Right now I barely had basic furniture. Anyone who walked in would fail me on the spot.
Technically I’d had to clear that hurdle just to be approved as a foster home, but somehow I’d skated through back then.
I didn’t know how far Mother Superior’s sacred shotgun extended its influence, and there was no guarantee it would work a second time.
……Even if it did, I wanted to build Luca a real, proper home.
A bright, warm place like Maria’s house.
Home. This place was truly ours now.
……Or was it? Was the neighborhood itself the problem? Should I earn money and move first?
Looking around the dim apartment with barely a stick of furniture, the words slipped out with a sigh.
“……We’ve got a long way to go.”
Still, I was full of drive.
Between leaving the house this morning and now, in the afternoon, the only thing that had changed was my mindset—yet already the baby and I felt like a family.
Whether he felt the same, I didn’t know… It was a feeling I couldn’t quite put into words.
Leaving the baby sleeping soundly, I sat at the table and started listing everything we needed.
First, a proper place for him to sleep—he’d spend most of his time there. And something like a storage unit or shelf for baby supplies, somewhere convenient for changing diapers.
A wardrobe for his clothes, too.
I’d stuffed all my own clothes into the kitchen cabinets and drawers, but somehow I didn’t want to do the same with his.
Since I never cooked, the cupboards had been empty, and with nowhere else to put clothes, I’d simply lived that way.
There was perfectly good storage space, so I’d never felt the need to spend money on furniture. It had seemed rational at the time.
Looking back now, I’d just been living however things happened to fall.
If I’d cared even a little more about myself, I would have at least gotten one proper wardrobe.
Realizing that made me feel, all over again, just how precious Luca had become to me.
I wanted so badly to give him a real living space.
The moment I started seeing the apartment as a home we would share, my mind kicked into overdrive.
How could I divide the space more efficiently, bring in furniture that fit what we had, and build a life around it? My heart was racing for some reason.
When was the last time I’d felt this excited?
Of course, thinking about the money I actually had made that swelling feeling deflate like a balloon.
Holding back a sigh, I opened the rough household ledger I’d scribbled earlier.
“…….”
Parental leave was unpaid, and the government support that came for Luca barely covered his needs even if I spent every cent on him alone.
Rent, including utilities: seven hundred dollars. Phone: a hundred twelve. If I somehow kept my own food under two hundred…
Even cutting transit costs since I wasn’t commuting, and accounting for the little expenses that always cropped up, fixed costs ran about a thousand fifty a month.
Tomorrow’s nine-hundred-dollar paycheck would be the last income coming in. Starting next month, I was straight into the red.
“Hmm.”
Anyone could see it was hopeless.
But the reason I’d casually taken three whole months of unpaid leave was that I still had one fallback.
A side job I’d occasionally taken when I needed quick cash while living in this neighborhood.
The apartment complex had five buildings total; mine was on a lower floor. Besides the office staff who collected rent and handled complaints, there were two maintenance workers who actually ran around keeping the place up.
On ordinary days they handled minor repairs tenants needed, mowed the lawns, managed parking, tended the streetlights and trash collection points inside the complex.
After a tenant moved out, they also repainted and varnished for the next one. Every few months they cleaned the stairwells and power-washed the parking lot.
Two people covering five buildings meant they were always short-handed, so the complex bulletin board often put out calls for residents willing to take on part-time odd jobs.
Fifteen dollars an hour. Cash, on the spot.
Having solved everything myself since I was little, I had all sorts of know-how and a decent natural knack with my hands, so the work itself wasn’t hard.
I was quicker and sharper than other applicants, so whenever I left my number, jobs always came to me first.
The reason I still didn’t do it often was that people made me deeply uncomfortable.
The maintenance guys were brusque. Even when I clearly did what they asked, they’d double-check whether I’d understood, or talk right past me as if I were empty air.
The tenants were worse. They were full of complaints by default, and racial discrimination toward me came free of charge.
When I came by to fix a faucet or change a lightbulb, they stood far back and watched me like I smelled.
Ironically, they knew I did good work, so they never actually said much.
There were always a few who planted themselves in the doorway when I’d come to fix something and demanded to know why I was there—why I hadn’t sent the regular guy.
Back then it had left me stunned and angry. Now I didn’t care about any of that.
Any other side job would mean commute time, and I couldn’t take the baby with me.
Hiring a sitter would defeat the whole point of taking parental leave.
The maintenance gigs only needed a few hours a day, and I could bring Luca along.
One of the regular guys sometimes brought his own kid after school, after all.
Racism?
I could endure it.
Personal insults?
I believed the saying: no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
I picked up my phone to text the maintenance crew—tell them to call me starting tomorrow whenever they had leftover work.
“……!”
The moment the home screen lit up, my eyes went wide.
The Manito App, which had vanished without a trace, was back.