The woman’s face is carved from stone, not a flicker or flinch of muscle.She makes a clucking sound and scribbles more notes.
Porter turns a page.“Now.Your relationship.”
Maddie’s hand withdraws from my knee as if burned.
“You cohabitate.”
“Yes,” Maddie says.
“Are you romantically involved?”
The air thins.Grayce gnaws on her ring as she watches us.
Squeak.Squeak.
“No,” Maddie says.The word is crisp, immediate, a pane of glass slammed down.“We’re co-parents.”
Porter doesn’t blink.“If your relationship is unstable or ambiguous, the court will require clarity regarding roles.”
“We are stable and our roles are clear,” Maddie says, her words clipped and now edged with ice.
Porter makes another note, and then, almost as if she’s been holding it in, almost like it brings her a grim satisfaction to let it out, she peers over her glasses at Maddie.“Given your foster care background, you must understand the importance of stability.Can you honestly say you can model that for a child when your own attachment history is so fragmented?”
The words hit like a blindside, and I know this because Maddie physically jerks before going pale.Her eyes flick, just once, toward Grayce.Then her gaze drops to her lap and stays there, fixed, like a punished kid.
Heat roars into my chest so fast I barely register standing.“Enough,” I grit out, the tone not savage enough for what I’m feeling.
Porter’s head turns toward me slowly, like an owl blinking.“Excuse me?”
“I said enough,” I growl, not hiding the menace.
“I’m doing my job, Mr.Karolak.”
“Your job is to evaluate this home.Not to weaponize Maddie’s past.You want stability data?You have it.You want observation?Observe.”I point to Grayce who has abandoned the teething ring as if she knows she needs to show some decorum in this moment.“That is a happy, attached kid who is fed, safe and adored, and that’s mostly because of Maddie.”
Porter doesn’t recoil, rather her chin lifts.“The court expects me to—”
“The court expects you to consider best interests,” I say.“Best interest looks like a woman who knows exactly what abandonment does to a kid and has made it her life’s work to keep other kids from ever feeling it.Her history isn’t a liability.It’s her credential.”
Silence.The furnace ticks.Grayce seems to glare at Ms.Porter.
Maddie’s breath is audible and when I glance at her, I find her lashes are wet.She blinks hard, once, twice, then scrubs her thumb under one eye and sits a little straighter.
Porter recalibrates.You can see it, the slow internal adjustment of a person who’s used to being the coldest thing in any room realizing she may have overshot.
She doesn’t apologize, but the next question is mercifully neutral.
“Religious upbringing?”
“Not at present,” Maddie answers, her voice confident and strong.“We’ll respect her preferences and keep an open dialogue as she gets older.”
“Name after adoption?”Porter’s pen stills as she looks between us.
“Donovan,” we say at the same time.
Porter watches our faces for a beat longer, as if waiting for a wobble.Maddie’s chin doesn’t dip.Mine doesn’t either.All is quiet and it seems oppressively heavy.
Then Porter writes it down.Her pen slows, just for a second, as if she recognizes what that choice means.
