“Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
“What was that?” the development director asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “What did it sound like?”
The capper for me was the day three board members came to the office for a meeting. I had made arrangements for my sister to take Thorin for two hours, except she got sick with a stomach flu. Oh well, I thought, they might as well meet my kid.
I wore an oatmeal-colored linen wrap skirt and a white linen wrap blouse. Thorin sat on my lap while I printed the documents for the meeting. What I didn’t realize was that he had untied both wraps. So when they walked in the office, and I rose to greet them, my skirt fell off and my blouse opened. Really, he can’t open a package of fish crackers but he can undress me. No one said anything. I don’t know if it was the harried look of a new mother on my face or the fact they could tell I might burst into tears, but everyone took their seats as if nothing had happened.
As summer wore on, I started to note changes in the nature of Thorin’s visits with his mother. I would arrive and find that she had left twenty minutes early. After one visit, she asked me if he could nap before I brought him because he was very active. Why didn’t she know a nap would make him more awake and active?
I realized even this limited time with Thorin was too much for her. I wondered if she knew she wasn’t up to the task of running after an active and curious two-year-old. I was eleven years older than her and I knew how demanding the task was.
Twenty-five minutes into another visit, Michael called me to come back and pick up Thorin. It was 90 degrees and muggy. When I got there, Thorin reached out for me immediately rather than staying in Michael’s arms.
“This guy was a little fussy. It’s so hot in there. She cut it short. He was too much for her,” Michael reported.
It was hard not to feel encouraged.
Our pretrial conference was at the end of August. When we arrived, Ward and I found Linda sitting on a bench outside the courtroom. We had been told by Linda the purpose of this proceeding was to set the court date for the determination of parental rights hearing—no decision would be made that day. The conference was scheduled to begin at ten o’clock; twenty minutes later, nothing had happened.
“These things never start on time,” Linda said yawning.
A few minutes later, she was called into the courtroom. Ward and I didn’t think anything was unusual because this was all unusual for us. But after an hour of various people going in the court room then coming back out, including Thorin’s mother, it was hard not to think something was up. Then Karen walked up to us.
“Can we talk?” she asked. “There’s a room down the hall. Linda will join us.”
The four of us sat around a small table in a room no bigger than a vestibule.
“Things have changed,” Karen said. “Thorin’s mother is considering voluntarily terminating her parental rights today.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said.
“What’s happening?” asked Ward.
“His mother would like to continue visits,” said Karen.
“No,” I blurted out. I could tell Ward was nervous about my answer, but he didn’t say anything.
“Would you send photos to her?” Linda asked. “It would be through our office.”
“Yes,” I said.
They sent us out into the hall. Thorin’s mother was there; she didn’t look at us. I avoided eye contact with her, too. Twenty minutes later, we all filed into to the courtroom. The judge asked her in several ways if she understood what she was doing. Each time, she said yes. She quietly cried the whole time, and Ward and I had tears streaming down our faces. My heart went out to her. In that moment, I could only feel gratitude. She was no longer my nemesis. She was a mother giving up her son for the right reasons.
She signed the papers and asked if she could leave. Thorin was ours.
Thorin and Bubba
Thorin calls me Ba
CHAPTER THREE
A Typical Son
As Ward and I drove from the courthouse to pick up Thorin from Shonë, we tried talking about what had transpired in the last hour.
“Do . . . you . . . you believe . . . what was,” I stuttered.
“No, I could never,” Ward said.
Alarmed I asked, “Did you just run a stop sign?”
“I’m glad you didn’t see the first one.”
“Maybe we should pull over.”
We parked next to a grocery store for a few minutes, sitting in silence and staring out the front window into our future. Our lives were suddenly and remarkably different. For Ward and me, our experience of parenthood was no longer marred by fear and trepidation at the prospect of losing Thorin. For Thorin, it finally meant permanence: we were his forever family. I was relieved Thorin’s painful origin story now had a happy ending.
When Thorin was old enough to understand, I would tell him his mother loved him so much that she made a decision that was difficult for her but was the best for him—that was objectively true. No matter what his mother had done or not done in the past didn’t make her decision less noble. She was helping Thorin secure a better future.
When we walked into our apartment with Thorin, I went upstairs. I made it to our bedroom before my legs started shaking so badly that I dropped to
