Chapter 20 — The Name That Felt Like Betrayal

I moved my chair around the table so that I was beside him instead of across from him, and I put my arm around his shaking shoulders, and for a moment I just let him cry, because some grief has to be let out before anything useful can be said to it.

“Then the adoption happened,” he got out, between breaths.

“It got made final, in the court, forever, and all I could think the whole drive home was that now it was real.