Chapter 8 - DANIEL CHOOSES THE HARDER FIGHT
The placement team met on Friday.
Daniel attended by video from his home office while five children were at school and daycare.
Gloria spoke first.
“The department recommends moving Mason to a therapeutic foster home and transitioning the younger four into two homes with ongoing sibling visitation.”
Daniel expected anger.
Instead he asked:
“What would change that recommendation?”
Gloria looked surprised.
“Evidence the current placement is sustainable.”
“Define sustainable.”
She did.
Childcare.
Space.
Finances.
Support network.
Behavioral services.
Transportation.
Emergency backup.
Long-term commitment.
Daniel wrote down every item.
Then the state attorney assigned to the dependency case, Rebecca Sloan, asked:
“Mr. Carter, are you considering yourself an adoptive resource?”
“Yes.”
“You have had these children six weeks.”
“Yes.”
“You understand adoption of five children is not an emotional gesture.”
“I do.”
“You’re twenty-nine and unmarried.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’ve never parented permanently.”
“No.”
“Why exactly should the department redesign five permanency plans around you?”
The question was fair.
Daniel hated it anyway.
He almost answered:
Because separating them will damage them.
Instead he said:
“You shouldn’t. Not yet.”
Everyone went quiet.
Daniel continued.
“You should evaluate me.”
Rebecca leaned back.
“For all five?”
“Yes.”
“If you fail?”
Daniel looked toward the closed office door.
“Then I fail.”
The words hurt.
But he said them.
“I don’t want promises made to these kids because I feel strongly. I want an actual assessment.”
That decision made his life harder immediately.
Daniel converted his guest room into a second children’s bedroom.
He arranged a long-term flexible schedule with his employer, accepting slower promotion prospects.
He enrolled in advanced foster-parent training for sibling groups and trauma.
Margaret agreed to complete background checks so she could serve as an approved support caregiver.
His best friend Aaron agreed to do the same.
Daniel met with a financial planner.
The numbers were ugly.
Five children meant daycare costs, food, clothes, transportation, medical appointments and eventually a larger vehicle.
Adoption assistance might exist depending on eligibility.
But Daniel refused to build a plan that collapsed if one payment changed.
He cut expenses.
Paused a kitchen renovation.
Sold his motorcycle.
The Harley had been the first expensive thing he bought for himself after college.
Mason watched a man load it onto a trailer.
“Why are you selling that?”
“Need money for boring things.”
“Because of us?”
Daniel considered lying.
“Partly.”
Mason looked upset.
“I didn’t ask you.”
“I know.”
“You can keep it.”
Daniel crouched.
“I’m not buying you with a motorcycle.”
Mason frowned.
“I’m deciding what matters to me.”
That night Mason did something Daniel had never seen before.
He went to bed before all four younger siblings were asleep.
It lasted eleven minutes.
Then he came back into the hallway.
But eleven minutes was a beginning.
Daniel’s irreversible decision was not filing adoption paperwork.
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It was reorganizing his life as though the evaluation deserved a real chance to say yes.
And once he did that, the state could no longer dismiss him as a temporary volunteer without testing whether the home actually worked.
