I immediately accompanied Eli upstairs to his bedroom and learned the devastating truth about what he had overheard. He had listened to Grant and Marilyn discussing our mounting financial pressures and overheard his grandmother state that he could be sent away because he was adopted and not my real son. Grant and I had adopted Eli when he was four months old, and we had foolishly delayed explaining his adoption story to him. Now, my innocent boy believed his place in our family was conditional and that he was being returned like a borrowed item to save money. Inside his backpack, I found a heartbreaking handwritten list of chores and sacrifices he planned to make just to convince us to keep him. He truly believed that if he made himself useful enough with the twins and stopped asking for new baseball shoes, we might change our minds. I held my crying son closely and promised him that adoption was permanent, assuring him that I had never agreed to this terrible plan and that he was never going to leave our family.
