The proceedings dragged on for months, and I will not pretend every week of it was easy.

I kept my remote job going from the Pasadena apartment, and I walked down the tree-lined street each afternoon to collect Toby from school, and there were weeks when the budget was so tight that a small, tired voice in me wondered whether I had traded a comfortable life for a hard one out of pride.

Then I would remember the little lit keypad on the door of the house I had paid into for eight years, refusing me, and the wondering would stop.

When Brandon began taking Toby for weekend visits, he tried, at first, to buy the boy — expensive electronics, designer clothes, the currency of a man who confuses money with love.