Chapter 3 - Four Years Earlier, a Little Girl Chose Me
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Before I understood what my parents had done, I needed to remember how Renee had entered my life.
Four years earlier, I visited a children's shelter on Chicago's South Side.
It was one of several community programs supported by the DeLuca Family Relief Trust.
I usually sent employees to charity events.
That afternoon, I went myself.
My longtime attorney had insisted I needed to become more involved in the legitimate side of our family's business.
I expected a tour.
Some photographs.
A few conversations with staff.
Then I would leave.
Instead, I met a little girl sitting alone beside a window.
She wore a pale yellow sweater and held a stuffed rabbit with one missing ear.
While the other children played, she watched the snow falling outside.
I crouched a few feet away.
“What's your rabbit's name?”
She studied me.
“Button.”
“That's a good name.”
She looked down.
“He doesn't like loud people.”
I smiled.
“Neither do I.”
That made her curious.
“Then why do you have a big voice?”
I laughed.
It was the first genuine laugh I'd had in weeks.
“My mother asks me that all the time.”
The girl carefully placed Button in my hand.
“You can hold him.”
I accepted the rabbit as though she had handed me something priceless.
A social worker named Ruth Alvarez approached.
“That's unusual,” she said quietly.
“What is?”
“Renee doesn't normally let strangers touch Button.”
I looked back at the little girl.
She was watching me with enormous brown eyes.
“She's had a difficult time,” Ruth continued. “She needs stability and patience.”
I spent the rest of that visit sitting on the floor, helping Renee build a crooked tower from wooden blocks.
When I stood to leave, she grabbed my sleeve.
“Are you coming back?”
I hesitated.
Then I crouched again.
“Would you like me to?”
She nodded.
So I returned.
And returned again.
Eventually, with the assistance of adoption professionals, social workers, and the court, I began the long process of becoming her father.
I passed background reviews and home assessments through the approved process, although my complicated business reputation meant additional scrutiny.
Nothing was automatic.
Nothing was simple.
But after months of visits, hearings, and preparation, Renee came home with me.
The first night, she stood in her new bedroom staring at a shelf filled with stuffed animals.
“Are these all mine?”
“Yes.”
“Even the pink bear?”
“Especially the pink bear.”
She looked toward the doorway.
“Can I stay here tomorrow?”
I swallowed.
“Of course.”
“And the next day?”
“Yes.”
She gripped Button tightly.
“Forever?”
I knelt in front of her.
“Forever, princess.”
From that moment, I stopped thinking of myself as a man who lived alone.
I became a father.
I learned to braid hair badly.
I learned which pancakes she preferred.
I learned that she hated thunderstorms but loved watching snow.
I also learned that my parents weren't as accepting as they pretended.
At first, Carmen smiled for photographs.
Antonio bought Renee an expensive toy kitchen.
Paula told me how generous I'd been to adopt a child.
I mistook polite approval for genuine love.
And over the following years, whenever Renee seemed reluctant to visit her grandparents, I assumed she was simply shy.
Now, sitting in my study on Christmas Eve, I realized I had ignored signs that should have been impossible to miss.
My mother hadn't merely failed to accept Renee.
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She appeared to know something about the child's past.
Something that might change everything I believed about the adoption.
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