Last weekend, we invited both sets of our parents over for a celebratory dinner. We cooked a huge meal, the kids were laughing in the basement, and the atmosphere was perfect. After dinner, while we were all sitting around the table having coffee, my wife stood up, smiling from ear to ear, and announced that we were officially petitioning the court to adopt our foster daughter.
My parents immediately jumped up, hugged my wife, and started crying tears of joy. My mother-in-law clapped her hands over her mouth and looked absolutely thrilled. But my father-in-law didn’t move. He sat rigidly in his chair, his face turning an angry, mottled shade of red.
The room went dead silent as he slowly put his coffee mug down on the table with a loud, aggressive clack. He didn’t offer a single word of congratulations. Instead, he looked at my wife, his own daughter, and said in a cold, furious tone, “I need to speak with you in the kitchen.
Now.” My wife looked at me, confused and a little frightened, but she followed him. I stood up a few seconds later to follow them, uneasy about his tone. Before I even reached the swinging kitchen door, I could hear him hissing at her in a harsh, venomous whisper.
“Are you out of your absolute mind?” he demanded. “Have you forgotten where this girl comes from? Have you forgotten what’s floating around out there about her?” I pushed the door open just as my wife stepped back, looking like she had been slapped. “Dad, she was a victim,” my wife pleaded, keeping her voice low so the kids downstairs wouldn’t hear.
“She was a child when all of that happened. It’s not her fault.” “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is!” he snapped, pointing a finger in her face. “It’s about reputation! It’s about our family name! You are going to legally attach us to a girl with that kind of history?
What happens when her past inevitably catches up with her? What happens when the people in this town find out who you brought into this family?” I stepped between them, my blood boiling. “She is already a part of this family,” I said firmly.
