I Raised Her Nephew for Four Years While She Sent Eight Cards — Then She Stood Up in Court and Told a Room Full of People I Only Did It for the Money
I'm forty-seven, I run wire for a living, and I have raised a boy since he was eight years old and would not say a word to anybody. Four years. Forty-eight months. I know the number the way you know your own kid's birthday. The morning we were supposed to finalize the adoption, his aunt filed for custody instead, and she said it out loud in front of the judge, the caseworker, my neighbors, and two guys off my crew: that everybody knows people like me take these kids in for the eight hundred dollars a month, and that blood is the only thing that's real. My boy was sitting on the bench right outside those doors and the doors were open. I did not say one word back to her. Not one. I only stood up and asked the court for a single thing, and it wasn't about her, and it wasn't about the money, and I have thought about that morning every day since.
