She would come to me, anxious, and ask, “Dad, do you really think I can raise Leo all by myself?”

And every time, I told her the same true thing.

“Gaby.

You already survived the absolute worst thing that will ever happen to you, and you did it alone, with a baby, on the street, with people actively working to destroy you.

Raising your son surrounded by people who love you is going to be the easiest thing you have ever done.” She began to see a therapist, to work on the damage that no court order could repair, and slowly the woman who had been buried under years of that patient cruelty began to surface again.

She reconnected with old professional contacts.