After delivering a baby for a lonely mother, the doctor looked at the newborn’s face and dropped his instruments in shock. He stared into the baby’s distinct amber eyes and whispered, “where is the woman who brought you here?” The mother pointed to her bag, revealing an old photograph that solved a twenty-year-old mystery…

on a cramped, dingy studio apartment that boasted cracked linoleum floors but featured a deadbolt that worked.

I observed all of this from a safe distance. I did not praise him. I did not offer encouraging smiles. I simply cataloged the data.

Our first court-mandated, supervised visitation occurred inside a sterile, fluorescent-lit room at a family services continue reading …