They Were About to Split Up Five Kids Under Seven. The One Man Willing to Take All Five Knew Exactly What That Does to a Child

But the second-youngest, who’d taken the longest to trust any of it, thought about the question seriously the way he thinks about everything, and then he asked the judge, in front of the whole courtroom, whether being a Holt meant nobody could ever come and take him to a different house again.

The judge said that was exactly what it meant.

That this was the kind that couldn’t be undone.

And he nodded, once, very grave, and said, “Okay.

Yes.

The kind that can’t be undone.” I have signed a lot of important papers in my life.

I have never signed anything that felt like that one.

I’m on the back porch steps with a cup of coffee going cold in my hand when Owen comes pounding up, out of breath, and drops his soccer ball by my boots and sits down against my side.