Finding home, family
Legal petitions from faraway relatives place girl’s dream of adoption on hold
At the top of the stairs in James and Lorraine Agnew’s house, there is a mural of a tree painted on one wall. Lorraine calls it “The Dream Tree.”
On its branches, among the painted leaves, are pictures of children, along with their dreams. There are 15 pictures on the tree, one for every child who has lived with the Agnews. When people ask Lorraine how long she will be a foster parent, she says, “When this tree is filled up.”
Soriah, 14, was the Agnews’ first foster child.
She was 9 and angry, with knots in her hair that took two bottles of detangler and 21⁄2 hours to get out.
Soriah wrote when she came to live with the Agnews in 2012.
She was a bully when she got there. “No one had ever been nice to her. Why should she be nice to anyone else?” Lorraine said.
She had school.
The Agnews adopted Soriah in 2014. She started getting straight As. missed an
• • •
entire
wrote year
in of
Jacky when she arrived.
Jacky was 8 when she came to live with the Agnews. She went home after 18 months but was removed again by child welfare workers.
Lorraine got a call from a caseworker who said, “We have a kiddo here who says she knows you and your husband.” Bring her back, Lorraine told her. Jacky’s mother agreed to give up her parental rights. She would be adopted by the Agnews on Jan. 12, 2018.
Aliyah Randle walked through the Agnews’ door in December 2016. She had been in foster homes for much of that year and hadn’t seen her biological mother, Laurell Florence, in months.
She wrote on her leaf that her goal was,
Two things her mother never had.
Aliyah was moody and hungry for attention at first.
Sometimes she acted out to get that attention, talking back or refusing to tidy her bedroom.
Lorraine and James didn’t flinch. They were used to children who showed up scared and mad at the world. Everyone has issues, they would say.
She was so used to doing for herself, Lorraine had to remind her that she didn’t have to do that anymore. “I’m the mom. Let me take care of you.”
2014
Next to the tree is the bedroom Aliyah, who had turned 9, shared with Domonique, who was 8.
The girls slept in bunk beds, Aliyah on the top.
She and Domonique would play with a dollhouse, two stories just like Lorraine’s dream house.
“A pile of Barbies lives in this house,” Aliyah liked to say, just like a pile of people live in her house.
“At first I felt like I was sleeping over,” Aliyah said one day, “but now it feels like home.”
There were rules — like being respectful and telling the truth — and routines to follow, a chore chart and a 9 p.m. bedtime. Aliyah liked the rhythm of it, though she wouldn’t always follow all the rules.
Her sisters were the best. Soriah helped her with homework. “When I’m in a bad mood, she asks, ‘What is wrong?’” Aliyah said. “She listens.”
James would sneak up on them when they were watching TV, sending the girls screaming. “James,” Lorraine would call, without even knowing what was going on. Just that James was causing it.
“I love to hear the laughter,” James said. He worked nights so he would take the girls to therapy or to the dentist while Lorraine worked managing an apartment complex.
Lorraine would rise at 5 a.m. to do everyone’s hair for school before she left for work at 6 a.m. Their clothes were neatly pressed, their homework done.
The girls dressed modestly. “We try to instill in them that they have to respect themselves so other people will respect them,” Lorraine said.
James and Lorraine told Aliyah to be proud of who she is.
“Do not be a product of what happened to you. Do not let this beat you,”
Lorraine would say.
They didn’t use They are a family. the word
••• •••
“foster.”
Lorraine’s dream house came with a swimming pool and it is well used. James makes sure each girl who comes to live with the Agnews can swim, teaching those who don’t just as he taught Lorraine.
Jacky knew how to swim but was afraid of the deep end. Serinity could get her arms going but not her legs.
Aliyah took to the water right away. She was like a frog, James liked to say.
The pool and swim lessons were important to him.
“They’re used to people giving up on them,” James would say. “We don’t give up.”
Not in the pool or anywhere else.
In August 2017, Lorraine took Aliyah aside and told her about a judge’s decision to sever her mother’s parental rights. She explained what that meant.
Aliyah listened. She had a question. Would Lorraine and James adopt her? “Can I be an Agnew?” Aliyah asked. Lorraine and James didn’t even have to think about it.
But there would be new obstacles. In October, the Agnews got a call from Aliyah’s adoption attorney, Janet Story. She had heard from Aliyah’s grandmother in Minnesota. She wanted to talk to Aliyah. She might be interested in adopting her.
Lorraine tried to reassure Aliyah one day as she did her hair.
It was January 2018, and Aliyah had been acting out, talking back.
Lorraine thought Aliyah was testing them, pushing the bounds of behavior to see if the Agnews would flinch before the adoption, now on the calendar for February.
Aliyah sat on the worked on her hair.
“You’re going to be my daughter,” she said. “You can’t shake me. I’m not going anywhere, not this mom.
“I am always going to be here. That’s a promise.”
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floor as Lorraine
In cases like Aliyah’s, the state is obligated to consider any family members that express an interest in being considered as an adoptive placement. That includes background checks, home inspections, notification in writing and appeals.
All of it takes time.
Aliyah wrote a letter to her grandmother telling her that she wanted to be adopted by the Agnews.
“Leave me alone,” Aliyah wrote. “She feels like she has no control over her own life, and right now she really doesn’t,” said Story, the attorney. “You can see this kid is suffering.”
The grandmother’s petition was denied. The 14-day window for her to appeal went by. She did not appeal the decision.
On the day of the hearing, Aliyah, who had turned 10 two weeks earlier, dressed carefully in a floral dress with a white cardigan, silver shoes and her hair in a bun.
Sitting in the lobby at the Mesa courthouse, Lorraine knew Aliyah was nervous, wondering, perhaps, “Is this really happening or are you backing out?”
Aliyah sat between James and Lorraine on the hard plastic chairs, chewing her nails.
What if her mother showed up? Aliyah asked.
“You don’t leave my side if she shows up,” Lorraine said.
Lorraine introduced Aliyah to Story, the attorney.
“This is the one who is going to, with
Jesus’ help, make you our baby,” Lorraine told Aliyah.
As they waited, Lorraine sang to Aliyah, “You are my sunshine.”
Story returned with bad news. The adoption had been postponed. One of Aliyah’s uncles had notified the state he wanted to adopt Aliyah.
The process would start over again. Aliyah dropped her head against Lorraine’s chest.
“I wish it could be today,” Aliyah said.
“So do I, baby,” Lorraine said. “So do
I.” •••
After an investigation, the uncle’s request was denied. He could appeal the decision if he wanted.
Story had seen this before. One family member after another comes forward to postpone an adoption. This could drag out Aliyah’s adoption for years.
So Story did something she had never done before, not in 20 years as an adoption attorney. She wasn’t sure it would work.
She filed a motion with the judge to proceed with the adoption despite any more requests by the family. Aliyah had been in foster care for two years at that point. There had been no contact from the family in all that time, not until her biological mother’s parental rights were severed.
Story was worried. “The longer this goes on, the less likely Aliyah is going to want to have contact with this family,” Story said.
The judge would consider the motion.
Coming in Chapter 6: