“I am truly sorry.
But the child you took was mine.”
And the victim mask she had worn since the party finally fell away.
“You were going to put him in daycare so you could leave on military assignments,” she shot back.
“I sang to him every night. I took him to school. I am his mother.”
Momand baby
“You stole him.”
“I raised him. I gave him everything you never could. Leave him where he is, and one day you’ll both thank me.”
Twelve years later, she still spoke as if stealing my son had been kindness.
My hands did not shake.
They had shaken at the party.
They did not shake in front of her that afternoon.
“I’m getting my son back, Natalie.
Not to punish you.
For him.
So when he asks one day, he’ll know his mother never gave him away.
He was taken from her.”
I filed the lawsuit.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done.
Because suing Natalie meant pulling Oliver into it.
A judge would have to ask a twelve-year-old boy which mother he wanted more.
Momand baby
Seven months passed.
Hearings.
A court-ordered DNA test.
Natalie fought every document.
Her lawyers portrayed me as the bitter aunt who had lost her husband and wanted revenge by stealing her sister’s child.
Most people believed them.
At family gatherings, no one spoke to me anymore.
One night, I called my father crying.
I told him I wanted to quit.
That Oliver looked at me with resentment.
That it was not worth it.
