My tears blur my sight, and I can’t continue reading it when I see Dylan’s name. My hands are shaking uncontrollably when I put one of them in front of my mouth. My body shakes now, and I can hear my teeth chattering. “What?”

“He came to me.” Tears roll down his own cheeks and he looks me in the eye. The anguish is written all over his face, the hurt, the pain everything is written on his face. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?” I’m so confused. “Did you agree to let us go for this?” I shake the paper in my hand. “To have him out of Dylan’s life, you gave us up?”

“Sweetheart,” he says, his voice broken. “Never.” He looks down “He signed it for ten thousand dollars.”

The gasp comes out along with the sob, and I fall, shattered to the floor, and he comes to me. “I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

The wail rips through me. “Why?” I can’t even think; I can’t see the paper in my hand crushed between us as he rocks me. “How could he? That’s his child. His blood,” I sob. “His son. Why?” I shake in his arms. “Me, I get, but Dylan, that sweet boy who doesn’t hurt anyone. Who accepts when all I can do is feed him peanut butter. The little boy who doesn’t care that he only got one Christmas gift or that his birthday gift this year was just a meal at McDonald’s and a visit to Dollar Tree. The boy who wore his shoes for two months more than he should have with a hole in the sole without saying anything because his dad’s fucking drug dealer came and took our rent. Or that we had to wear our shoes and gloves to bed one night because the heating got cut off in the spring, but it was still fucking snowing.” I close my eyes, thinking of Dylan. “My son, who doesn’t deserve any of this. Why?”

“I don’t know,” he says softly. “I have no idea, but I had to,” he says, broken. “Don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me.”

“Hate you?” I ask. “Why would I hate you?”

“I gave him money for him to go away,” he says, his heart broken. “He sat in front of me and signed the paper like he was taking out a library book, not signing away his son.”

“After everything that he’s done to you, you still gave him money?” I ask.

“I would have given him everything that I have,” he says, and he dries my tears with kisses. “Right down to my last cent if it got him away from Dylan.”