“I need to ask about something,” I’d told her, standing awkwardly in her small waiting room. “I don’t even know if it’s a real thing you can ask for.”
Parenting
She’d smiled, the kind of smile that told me she’d heard stranger requests than mine. “Adult adoption is real,” she said. “More common than people think. Tell me about him.”
I remember feeling almost embarrassed by how easily the words came once she asked, like I’d been saving them up somewhere without realizing it.
I’d talked for twenty minutes straight, barely pausing for breath, about algebra and Tuesdays and every game he’d shown up to. She’d taken notes the whole time, nodding occasionally, and by the end she was smiling in a way that wasn’t professional courtesy anymore.
“This is one of the better reasons I’ve heard for filing this kind of paperwork,” she’d told me. “Most people come in here for inheritance reasons. You came in here for a reason that actually matters.”
