As he spoke, the social worker came out from the back office holding a set of state forms.

“Mr.

Vance,” she said, and both of us looked up, and she almost smiled.

“The judge has signed off on the emergency kinship placement.

As a verified blood relative stepping forward, you are being granted guardianship, pending the final adoption decree, which will proceed through the proper channels from here.

I want to note, because it matters, that nothing about this was rushed in the ways that would have been wrong to rush.

A child’s placement is a serious thing, and the system, for all its coldness, exists to protect children, and it did its job.