Part 4 — They Wanted to Take Carrie From Me Too
By nine the next morning, I was on the phone with Carrie’s caseworker.
Her name was Ms. Martinez.
“I need the adoption expedited,” I told her. “Whatever paperwork you need, whatever hearing has to happen, whatever I have to sign—just tell me.”
There was a pause.
I hated that pause instantly.
“Daniel,” she said carefully, “the adoption application has been suspended.”
My grip on the phone tightened.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
I did.
My prognosis.
She went on, gently.
“The committee has concerns about placing Carrie permanently with someone whose medical condition may result in her experiencing another major loss very soon.”
I closed my eyes.
“She already lost her mother.”
“I know.”
“No, you know that as a sentence in a file.”
My voice started shaking.
“She’s upstairs right now, asleep in a room that still smells like Natalie’s shampoo. When she wakes up, I’m the one who has to tell her that her mother isn’t coming home.”
“Daniel—”
“You can’t protect her from grief by taking away the only parent she has left.”
Silence.
Then Ms. Martinez said, “I’ll bring your file back before the committee.”
“When?”
“As quickly as I can.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only promise I can make today.”
I thanked her, because yelling wouldn’t accomplish anything.
Then I hung up.
On the kitchen table sat a half-full glass of water Natalie had left before going out.
I couldn’t bring myself to move it.
It felt ridiculous.
It was only a glass.
But throwing out the water felt too close to admitting the person who’d poured it wasn’t coming back.
Around noon, the doorbell rang.
Meredith stood outside holding a casserole in one hand and a yellow legal pad in the other.
My sister had exactly two responses to a crisis.
Feed someone.
Organize something.
She’d come prepared to do both.
“Move,” she said.
She walked past me.
“Where’s Carrie?”
“Sleeping again.”
“Good. Sit.”
“Meredith—”
“Do not ‘Meredith’ me.”
She set the casserole on the stove.
Then sat across from me, opened the legal pad, and clicked her pen.
“You’re going to fight this.”
“They think I’m dying.”
“I’m aware.”
“And they have a point.”
“No.”
The answer came so sharply I stopped talking.
Meredith’s expression softened.
For a moment she stopped looking like my bossy older sister and looked like the girl who used to clean the blood off my knees when we were kids.
“That little girl has lost enough people,” she whispered. “She is not losing you because some committee is scared of what might happen someday.”
She pushed the legal pad toward me.
“So start talking. Who do we call?”
I picked up the pen.
And the fight began.
