Her name was Ms. Daniels, and she wrote like everything she put down might be used in court.
Melissa watched the neat lines appear on the page: names, dates of birth, checkboxes for single, married, divorced, it's complicated—well, not that last one, but it might as well have been.
"Full names, please," Ms. Daniels said. "And current marital status."
"Melissa Harris," Melissa replied. "Single."
"Albert Jones. Divorced."
The caseworker nodded, pen scratching. "Biological parents of the children present?"
"I'm Maya's mother," Melissa said, a little too quickly.
"I'm William's dad," Albert added.
"Hm." She drew two lines on the paper, a neat visual of their lives. "And your relationship to each other?"
Silence stretched again.
"We live together," Albert said finally. "We take care of the kids. Together."
"Legally married? Domestic partnership? Any formal arrangement?"
"No," Melissa said.
Ms. Daniels wrote unmarried cohabiting adults in a small, precise hand.
"Okay," she said. "Who is the primary caregiver?"
"We both are," Albert said.
"I'm with Maya whenever I'm not at the hospital," Melissa said at the same time.
The caseworker didn't sigh, but her eyebrows twitched. "Let me rephrase. Who handles school drop-offs and pick-ups? Meals? Bedtime? Who makes medical decisions if there's an emergency?"
The questions weren't malicious. They were just… slicing.
Melissa suddenly felt very tired.
At the hospital, she knew what to do. Run toward the alarms. Follow protocol. When she messed up, the consequences were hers alone.
Here, a stranger with a clipboard could decide whether her daughter was in a "stable environment" based on how gracefully she answered a series of boxes.
Albert cleared his throat.
"School runs, that's mostly me," he said. "I work construction, early mornings, but I can wiggle it. I cook dinner most nights. Melissa does breakfasts and homework when her shifts allow. We both read the bedtime stories. Nightmares are kind of a free-for-all."
Melissa shot him a look, but there was gratitude in it.
"And medical decisions?" Ms. Daniels asked.
"Together," he said. "She's the nurse. I'm the guy who Googles things late at night and panics. It evens out."
The smallest corner of the caseworker's mouth twitched. She wrote shared decision-making.
"Right," she said. "Next part, I'll need to talk to the children separately."
Melissa's spine stiffened. "Is that absolutely—"
"It's standard," Ms. Daniels said, not unkindly. "You can stay just outside the door."
In the bedroom, she took the chair by the dresser. William and Maya shared the edge of the lower bunk, knees almost touching.
"How are you two feeling?" she asked. "Scared? Confused?"
"Both," William said. "And kind of annoyed. It's loud here."
"What about at home? Before the fire."
He shrugged. "It was quieter. Just me and Dad. He worked a lot. We didn't… talk this much."
"Do you feel safe here?" she asked.
He thought about last night—the blackout, the bunk, the way three sets of arms had tangled together.
"It's crowded," he said. "But… it's the first time my dad doesn't eat by himself."
Maya picked at a loose thread on the bedspread.
"Do you feel safe?" Ms. Daniels asked her.
Maya's eyes went to the door, where a thin strip of light showed the shadow of her mother's feet.
"I still get scared at night," she said. "Sometimes I see the fire when I close my eyes."
"That makes sense," the caseworker said softly.
"But now…" Maya hesitated, then plunged on. "Now I get two goodnight hugs. It helps."
Ms. Daniels wrote something on her form that neither of them could see.
When she came back to the living room, Melissa was standing by the window, arms folded like she was holding herself together.
"Well?" she asked.
Ms. Daniels slid the form to the last section. The boxes here were bigger, with more room for words.
She wrote slowly, reading as she went.
Not a conventional family structure.
Emotional safety appears strong.
Recommend: maintain current placement.
Melissa let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
It wasn't a wedding certificate. It wasn't a mortgage. It was a few lines on a government form.
But for a woman who had spent years feeling like she was barely keeping her life taped together, it looked suspiciously like a stamp of recognition.
"You said the program lasts three months?" Albert asked.
"Maximum," Ms. Daniels said. "The state front-loads support. After that, it expects people to be… resilient."
She didn't say what she thought of that.
"And after three months?" Melissa asked.
"You'll need a plan," Ms. Daniels said. "Find longer-term housing. Figure out schooling, work, all the fun stuff."
She headed for the door, then paused.
"One more thing," she added. "If you decide to make this family more permanent, there are benefits you can apply for. Tax credits. Housing programs. Things that only kick in for households that define themselves as… well. Households."
She didn't say married. She didn't have to.
The door shut behind her.
In the quiet that followed, the kids taped another handwritten rule to the fridge in bright marker:
HOUSE RULE #2:
NOBODY EATS ALONE.
Melissa stared at the rule, then at the clock over the stove.
Three months.
Ninety days.
Sometimes, that was all the time people got in the hospital to learn to walk again. Or to say goodbye.
"How long," she wondered aloud, "does it take for something temporary to feel like home?"
No one answered.
But the ticking of the clock started to sound a lot like a countdown.