Background checks.
Interviews.
Court dates.
Temporary foster arrangements while our petition was reviewed.
We were not automatically entitled to anything because Anna had said James’s name.
That mattered.
She could express trust.
She could not bypass the
law.
The baby’s biological father formally relinquished his claim.
Social workers searched for relatives.
They located a distant cousin who declined placement.
There was a stretch in the middle when a caseworker warned us to prepare ourselves for the possibility that another family might ultimately be selected.
That hurt.
I went home and cried in the garage beside that old box of baby things we’d never donated.
We didn’t tell the boys everything at first.
We told them there was a baby who might need a family and that we
were trying to help.
Our oldest asked whether she would stay forever.
“We don’t know.”
Our seven-year-old asked whether she’d be allowed in his room.
“Eventually.”
He thought about it.
Then cried when we said yes.
Our four-year-old asked if babies ate chicken nuggets.
He was less emotionally complicated.
Eventually, we became her foster placement.
Then, months later, adoption was approved.
She came home for good in the spring.
The day before the adoption was finalized, James and I sat at the kitchen table choosing her legal name.
She’d been
Anna’s daughter from the beginning.
Her birth certificate already had a first name.
“Clara.”
I stared at it when I first learned.
Of all names, it was the one I’d carried since I was 19.
Nobody had known.
Not Anna.
Not anyone.
Sometimes, coincidence feels rude.
We kept Clara.
But I asked for one thing.
James cried when I asked it.
Then said yes before I’d even finished.
I wanted Anna in her name.
Not tucked away somewhere nobody would use it.
Not reduced to a note in a file.
Her full name became Clara Anna.
Anna would be said.
Written.
Called up the stairs.
Marked on school forms.
Sung on birthdays.
Our boys practiced it immediately.
“Clara Anna!”
They shouted it down the hall so often the baby startled awake twice.
I didn’t stop them.
