I caught my son slipping his expensive dinner into our maid’s old bag. Furious, I demanded, “Why are you stealing from your own family?” He looked up with tears in his eyes and whispered, “Because she’s my real mom, and she only eats our leftovers.” My world spun as I looked at the hidden photo in her bag…

with a sword, standing next to a boy holding a massive, lopsided turkey leg. Behind them stood a woman in blue scrubs with a silver shield, and a very tall man with an exaggerated amount of spiky hair.

At the bottom, written in the messy, block letters of a nine-year-old, it read:

For Lily and Grace. Because heroes shouldn’t ever be hungry.

I stood alone continue reading …