“Well, a really sweet lady, Miss Frances, I called her, saw me and asked me where I came from, and I was petrified to tell her, because I didn’t want to be taken home. Despite my tight lips, I think she knew it was somewhere bad, because she ended up taking me in that night. We spent the next couple days together baking, gardening, watching movies…she even took me shopping and made up a bedroom for me. A beautiful pink princess room. She gave me the best days of my life up until then.”

The baby’s coos intensified, and Debra shifted naturally into mama mode as she silenced the baby with a rocking motion.

“A couple days later Miss Frances told me she hated to do it, but she needed to go through the proper channels, but her intention was to foster me. This was back in the day where the foster system didn’t have many checks and balances, and hardly any good families wanted any part in it, only people who wanted the paycheck. So Miss Frances called social services and asked if she could have temporary custody of me until the paperwork was completed. They denied her, came to pick me up, and tried to reunite me with my biological family. Of course I ran away again, but I had no idea where to find Miss Frances. I was very young, you know? Again I got picked up, and this time they put me in a new foster home. I never saw my parents—or sweet Miss Frances—again after that.”

Debra paused to kiss the sleeping baby on her forehead.

“I don’t know if my parents simply never tried to see me, or what, but it was a relief. Until I got put into foster care with a family who was only in it for the money. She fostered several of us—they didn’t have all the rules that prevented overcrowding back then—and we were all treated like garbage. Again, I ran away. Again, I was found. This happened about a dozen times before I finally fit into the right family. A single woman, no less, which was highly uncommon back in those days. That woman I called my real mom—Olivia Fields.” Debra turned to Oliver. “Your grandmother, Ollie. The woman you were named after.”

Debra handed me the baby.