At 78, My Father Wanted to Foster a 10-Year-Old Boy. The Caseworker Said Yes on One Condition. Me.

“I’ve been approved,” my father said. “To foster a boy.”

I was halfway through a bite of pot roast. I put down my fork.

“Dad. You’re seventy-eight.”

“I’m aware of my age, Cort.”

“You had a knee replaced in March.”

“Which makes it a very good knee.”

I’m Cort Bracken. Forty-seven. Single, never married, no kids. I run Bracken Wheat & Wool, sixty thousand acres of dryland wheat and sheep outside Pendleton, Oregon. Three generations. My father ran it for forty years before me. He still drives a combine every harvest, against medical advice.

My mother died two years ago. Since then, the big farmhouse has been very quiet.

“His name is Jaxon,” Dad said. “He’s ten. He’s been in four homes in two years. He likes tractors, and he doesn’t talk much, and nobody wants a ten-year-old boy who doesn’t talk much.”

“And you do?”

“I raised one,” he said, looking at me. “Turned out all right. Mostly.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“There’s a catch,” Dad said. “The caseworker’s worried about my age. Fair enough. She wants a backup guardian named. Someone younger, who’ll step in if anything happens to me. Someone who’ll make sure that boy is never moved again.”

He took a sip of coffee.

“I gave her your name.”

“You what?”

“She’s coming out Thursday,” my father said. “She’d like to meet you.”