Keisha lives with her grandmother. I walk up to the front door, knock, and within seconds the little girl bursts outside like she’s been waiting for me all night.

“Daddy Mike!” she shouts as she jumps into my arms.

Her thin arms wrap around my neck, and behind her stands Mrs. Washington — her grandmother — watching quietly from the doorway. The look in her eyes is always the same: tired, grateful, heavy. She knows I’m not Keisha’s biological father. Keisha knows it too. But pretending for a few minutes a day keeps that child from breaking apart.

Three years ago, I had never seen her in my life. I was riding behind a shopping mall, taking a shortcut, when I heard crying. Not normal child crying, but that raw, suffocating sound that makes your chest tighten like you’re choking. I stopped, got off my bike, and found a little girl sitting by a dumpster in a torn “princess” dress soaked in blood — not hers, but her mother’s.

“My daddy hurt Mommy… Mommy won’t wake up…” she kept whispering.

I called 911, stayed beside her, and wrapped my leather jacket around her shaking body so she wouldn’t freeze from shock. Her mother died that night in the hospital. Her father was sentenced to life in prison. And a five-year-old girl was left with an elderly grandmother who could barely walk on her own.

At the hospital, a social worker asked me if I was family. I said no — that I was just a stranger who happened to show up at the right time. But Keisha refused to let go of my hand. She called me “the angel man” and kept asking when I would come back.

To be honest, I wasn’t planning on coming back. I was 57 at the time, had no kids, never wanted any, lived alone, and spent most of my life on the road. But sometimes a child’s eyes hit you harder than any accident or crash. Hers did.

So I returned the next day. And the next. Soon it became routine — visiting the house, helping the grandmother, walking Keisha to school, attending little school events. Somehow, without planning it, I became the only male in her life who didn’t hurt her, leave her, or scare her.

About six months after I found her, she called me “Daddy” for the first time. The school organized a “Father-Daughter Breakfast.” Every child had a father there. Keisha had me — a leather-vest biker with no blood relation to her.

When the teacher asked the children to introduce their fathers, Keisha stood up and calmly said:

“This is my Daddy Mike. He saved me when my real daddy did something really bad.”

The room went silent. My first instinct was to correct her, to explain. But from the doorway, her grandmother gave me a small shake of her head. Later she said:

“Mr. Mike, that child lost everything in one night — her mother, her home, her sense of safety. If that one word ‘Daddy’ helps her survive, please don’t take it from her.”

So I became “Daddy Mike.” Not by paperwork, not by blood — but in the heart of one little girl.

Now Keisha is eight. Some days she talks endlessly and laughs at everything. Other days she suddenly freezes mid-sentence and stares at nothing, as if the past reaches out and grabs her by the throat. Doctors call it trauma. I call it a shadow that refuses to let go.

Recently the social services started asking questions. They’re evaluating Mrs. Washington’s health. If it gets worse, Keisha could be placed in foster care. I know for a fact that losing her home and her only safe person again would destroy her all over.

Today I stood in front of the social services office with a thick folder in my hand. Three different workers asked me the same question: