I raised my fiancé’s ten children after he walked out on us — thirty years later, his lawyer showed up at my door and said, “He asked me to give you this envelope today.”

called, my two cousins, and a family friend who’d known me since childhood. Even some of Robert’s relatives called.

Every one of them said some version of the same thing.

At the county office, a woman with kind eyes sat across from me with a stack of papers.

“Are you certain?” she asked. “Emergency guardianship is only the first step before adoption. continue reading …