The word my child landed in the room like a dropped plate. Bethany’s hand froze on the drawing. Mom turned to me with the smile she used right before she said something cruel. “Your child?” she laughed. “Nora, you don’t have children. That’s the whole point.” Then she noticed the woman standing quietly beside the bookshelf, the county folder open in her hands, a pen moving steadily across the page. Mom’s smile flickered. “Who is this?”

Patricia Lowell introduced herself calmly, by title, as the caseworker conducting the final placement review for Maya and Caleb. The color drained from my mother’s face. Dad stopped halfway down the hall. Bethany looked between us, still not understanding, her fingers slipping off the taped drawing. “Placement review for who?” she asked. I walked to the shelf, picked up the two wooden signs I had hung the night before, and held them so everyone could read the names. “For the children I’ve spent eight months being approved to adopt,” I said. “The children you came to throw into a garage.”