What mother wouldn’t?

But Thomas made it so difficult.

He made it impossible.” And beside her, Gregory nodded along, adding his weight to it.

“Laura tried for years to reach out to those girls,” he told the little group.

“Years.

He kept them completely isolated from her.

Wouldn’t let her near them.” One of the women glanced across the room at me with open judgment on her face, and Laura, seeing it land, pressed on.

“You just cannot imagine,” she said, “what it does to a loving mother, to be kept away from her own precious babies.”