I learned that she liked her eggs soft and her juice without any pulp because she called it juice hair.
Each night she asked if I would still be there in the morning, and each morning I was.
Patrick and Amber returned on Sunday afternoon and I heard the sound of their car in the driveway.
Daisy was at the table and she stopped moving her pencil when she heard the front door open.
Toby ran into the house wearing mouse ears and shouting about the rides he had been on.
Patrick stood in the kitchen doorway looking sunburned and exhausted from the trip.
“I left a manila envelope in the mailbox for you to read,” I said to Patrick.
He went outside and returned a moment later with the legal documents in his hand.
His face changed as he read the words petition and emergency custody and neglect.
“You are trying to take her because of one mistake?” Amber shouted as she entered the room.
I told her that it was not one mistake but a long pattern of making a child feel like an outsider.
