It took the courts over a year to work through the wreckage.

I stopped attending every hearing partway through, because I finally understood that I had a far more important job than watching her be punished.

I had to learn how to be a father, from scratch, to a wounded nine-year-old I had known for only a handful of months.

Her punishment was the state’s work.

My son was mine.

But I do not want to leave the ones who were not found, because I made myself a promise, standing in that courtroom, that I would not let my own happy ending erase them, and telling this story honestly is part of keeping that promise.

Two children linked to Evelyn Hayes’s files were never located.