At midnight, my four-year-old granddaughter stood sobbing on my doorstep. I lifted her into my arms. “Why are you here?” I asked. Between tears, she whispered, “Mom doesn’t need me anymore… they’re having a new baby.” In her tiny hands was a wrinkled document: Parental Rights Relinquishment. My heart pounded as I called my son. The truth he revealed was beyond anything I could imagine.
Lily sniffled, pulling her small, freezing hands out from beneath the fleece blanket. Clutched tightly in her right fist was a crumpled, slightly damp piece of heavy-stock white paper. She tremblingly opened her hand, offering it to me like a piece of tragic evidence.
I took the paper and carefully smoothed out the wrinkles on the kitchen counter.
