“God, I hate to be the one to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

A beat. “The biological father wants Angelina back.”

I made her repeat it in case I hadn’t heard correctly. She did.

“So what if he wants her back,” I said. “We adopted her. She’s our daughter now. Who cares what he wants?”

“You don’t understand-it’s complicated.”

I pictured Melissa and Angelina at home having a lazy Saturday morning. “Of course we’ll work this out,” I said. “This is all some kind of big misunderstanding. It’ll all be fine.” Despite my words, my mouth tasted like metal.

Said Julie, “The birth father never signed away parental custody, Jack. The mother did, but the father didn’t. It’s a terrible situation. Your lawyer should have explained all of this to you. I don’t want to be the one going over legalities because I’m not qualified. As I said, it’s complicated…”

“This cannot be happening,” I said.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “She’s been with us nine months. The birth mother selected us.”

“I know. I was there.”

“Tell me how to make this go away,” I said, sitting up in my chair, leaning over the desk. “Do we pay off the kid, or what?”

Julie was silent for a long time.

“Julie, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Meet me at your agency now.”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I can’t. I shouldn’t even be talking with you. I should never have called. The lawyers and my executives said not to make direct contact, but I felt I had to.”

“Why didn’t you call us at home?”

“I got cold feet,” she said. “You don’t know how much I wished I could erase that message I left for you.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, “but you can’t walk away. I need to understand what you’re saying. You’ve got to work with me to make this kid go away. You owe us that.”