“I know. But that still doesn’t mean she’s heartless. She could just as easily have let it go and not applied to see her, it wouldn’t have done her any harm. She wants to, and I think that counts for something.”

“I guess,” I muttered. I still hated the situation, but I had to admit that Shane had a point.

A week later we were asked to meet with Kallie’s mother in prison. She hadn’t wanted Kallie to come, Helena had told us. She’d said that a prison was no place for a child. Despite my feelings surrounding the whole thing, that did make me feel a little better about her.

She asked to see pictures. She wanted to know what her first word had been, what it had been like when she smiled for the first time, and a bunch of other things. We answered as best we could, and showed her the pictures we carried of the kids. It actually went a lot better than I’d expected it to. She asked if Kallie was happy, and we replied that we thought so.

She let us know that she was sorry for having been on drugs for so long and missing out on the chance to know her daughter, and she thanked us for taking care of her. I was ready to end it there without discussing future plans so we could avoid any impending heartbreak for a little while longer, but as we were standing up to leave the meeting room she said, “When I get her back, you can come visit if you’d like to.”

Alice turned to look at me, and I saw the anguish in her eyes. All I wanted to do at that moment was jump across the table and throttle this bitch until we never had to worry about her again, but I somehow managed to restrain myself. I nudged Alice and got her walking out the door, and neither of us looked back. Alice made it to the outer doors before she started crying.

Looking back on it, I’m sure Kallie’s mother didn’t mean it to sound as cruel as it did. I’m sure she thought she was being nice, but it just hurt more than she could have known. Kallie wasn’t our biological daughter but we’d had her since the day she was born, and to hear that we’d be “allowed” to visit her stung like nothing had before. We went home defeated and sad.