…But instead of seeing Andrea, I was met by a stern-faced social worker standing at the door.
“Mr. Delaney,” she said, her voice tight. “There’s… been a development.”
My heart stopped.
“A development?” I asked, already feeling my knees go weak.
She nodded. “We were preparing Andrea for your arrival when a woman showed up this morning—claiming to be her biological grandmother. She came with a lawyer… and custody papers.”
My world spun.
“No… That’s not possible. Stephanie always said her mother abandoned her when she was sixteen. There was never any contact—she wasn’t in our lives!”
The social worker sighed. “That may be true. But legally, the woman is Andrea’s blood relative. And unfortunately, that gave her standing to challenge the adoption.”
I could barely speak. “Where… where is Andrea now?”
“She left with the woman about an hour ago.”
I felt like the air had been sucked out of the sky.
I had worked myself to the bone—three jobs, no sleep, no life—just to bring her home. And now, someone who had never shown up in Stephanie’s life swooped in at the last moment and took my daughter away.
I stood in the parking lot, gripping the adoption approval letter in one hand and Andrea’s favorite stuffed bear in the other. The last thing she’d left at my house. I stared down at it and made a vow.
I wasn’t done.
The next few weeks were a blur of court documents, lawyer consultations, and digging up everything I could about Stephanie’s past. Turns out, the “grandmother” had a history of neglect and a sealed case file from years ago—something child services hadn’t seen because she’d moved out of state.
I gathered everything. I even found an old birthday card from Andrea’s seventh birthday—the one where she wrote: “To my real dad. I love you, even if we don’t match.”
That letter broke the judge’s heart. And it reopened the case.
Three months later, I stood on my porch as a taxi pulled up. Andrea stepped out, her backpack hanging off one shoulder and her arms full of drawings she’d made for me. Her hair was longer. Her eyes were tired. But when she saw me, she dropped everything and ran.
“DAD!”
I caught her mid-air, holding her tighter than ever.
I had lost her once.
But this time, I was never letting go.