Family doesn’t have to match the picture you started with; love will redraw it better. She used to picture a little girl named Adalie Kayte, with strawberry-blonde curls, a dusting of freckles, and warm cheeks, and she would kiss her goodnight. She imagined bedtime stories, Saturday morning cartoons, and hugs that squeezed the air from her lungs. Adalie would be hers, and she would be Adalie’s. But Adalie never came. After years without a baby, she started to accept that motherhood might not happen as she’d hoped, even as her heart tugged her toward helping children in another way.
Fostering was a quiet idea she mentioned now and then, unsure if her husband would agree. It took time, but one day he said he was ready. She signed up for classes the next morning. Within a year, they were licensed. The “you are open” email arrived while she was at the Cheesecake Factory in Atlanta, and she cried into her napkin, imagining tiny footsteps down her hallway. The first call came the very next day, a teenage girl. She was out of town and not prepared, so she said no. Then came the yes: two brothers, J at 12 and D at 10. They called her “Mom” from the start. A few months later, A moved in, almost 15, and he drew a line: he wouldn’t call anyone “mom.” The word hurt him. She accepted that boundary and kept showing up anyway. She built a kind, steady relationship with J and D’s mother, Thanksgiving together, Sunday visits, weekday drop-ins. Reunification was on the horizon; the boys could go home any time.
Her marriage, meanwhile, was slipping away. If she were honest, it had been unraveling long before fostering began. After a decade, they ended things amicably. She braced herself for a new kind of family and kept her door open. A worker called about Q, age 17, who had been sleeping in the office while waiting for a facility bed. All she could offer was a pull-out couch in A’s room. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the floor. She rushed out for basics, a comb, deodorant, soap, shampoo, made up the couch, and tucked him in when he dozed off.
He woke and asked if she’d really tucked him in. Yes. At 17, it was his first time. Q eventually aged out, but they reconnected later. By then, since 2019, she had welcomed 13 boys, all teens or preteens, into her home. After a while, A and she took a breath. Adoption was coming. On April 27, 2021, her 32nd birthday, she adopted him. He’s Andre now. They celebrated at the Cheesecake Factory, where her fostering journey had opened. He calls her “Mom” these days. In sunlight, his curls flash a hint of red, and freckles scatter across those familiar, kissable cheeks.
She tucks him in at night, and they snuggle through Sunday Netflix marathons, because teenagers don’t do early-morning cartoons. His hugs are the best she’s ever known. She is the proudest mom, and he is her son. The dream she once pictured with a little girl found its shape in a teenage boy with a good heart and a second chance. They live in a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment with two border collies, Dasie and Stetson. For the moment, two brothers—15 and 10—are sharing Andre’s room until next week. Her home is officially closed, but she still helps with respite care, volunteers at their local Isaiah House in Robertson County, Tennessee, and serves as Vice President of their Foster and Adoptive Family Association, Highway 49 FACA, which supports families in Robertson, Cheatham, and now Sumner counties.
She teaches 5th grade. Andre is stepping into his senior year, and they plan to soak it up, football, basketball, family, friends, all of it. She once longed for a child named Adalie, and though that child was never born, the love she saved didn’t go to waste. It found its way to boys who needed a safe place, a steady hand, and sometimes their first tuck-in. It found its way to Andre, who made her a mother in the truest sense.
