“And Eli,” she said, turning to me, “you understand this is permanent. There’s no undoing it later if circumstances change.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’ve never wanted anything to be undone less in my life.”
She smiled at that, the first real smile she’d shown all morning.
“Then by the authority granted to me by this state,” she said, “I hereby grant this petition for adult adoption. Congratulations to the Reyes family.”
A court clerk stamped something on the paperwork, an ordinary administrative sound that somehow felt enormous in that small room. Marcus shook the judge’s hand, his own hand visibly unsteady, and thanked her three separate times before she gently told him once was plenty.
I hugged Mom right there in the courtroom, both of us laughing and crying at the same time in a way that probably looked ridiculous to anyone walking past in the hallway.
