Chapter 8 - The Families Who PaidThe Hanovers and Dunns were investigated separately.
Their cases did not look identical.
Jonathan and Claire Hanover admitted they paid $140,000 through a private “family-building ministry.”
They had suffered eight years of infertility.
According to Claire, Mateo told them:
“A young woman has freely chosen to place a child with a Catholic family. She wants total anonymity.”
They met Lupita once during late pregnancy.
She had been sedated lightly and told Claire was a charitable donor.
Claire remembered Lupita asking:
“Do you know when I get to see the baby?”
Mateo immediately interrupted.
He later told the Hanovers Lupita suffered from delusions and should not be engaged.
Claire had believed him.
That belief now disgusted her.
The Dunn case was worse.
Emails showed Mr. Dunn asking:
Can birth mother change her mind?
Beatriz replied:
Not in this arrangement. Maternal claim is handled before delivery.
That should have alarmed them.
They proceeded anyway.
But they still claimed they did not know Lupita had never consented.
The legal cases surrounding Isabella and Mia became complicated.
The state did not simply pull the children from their homes.
Child specialists evaluated safety.
Courts appointed independent representatives.
The girls were told age-appropriate truths gradually.
Lupita was allowed her first video contact with Isabella after several weeks.
Isabella was six.
She stared into the screen.
“Are you the lady from the picture?”
Lupita swallowed.
“What picture?”
“My mom showed me one.”
Claire Hanover sat off-camera.
She had chosen to begin telling Isabella the truth instead of fighting forever to preserve a false history.
Lupita nearly hated her less for that.
“Do you know me?” Isabella asked.
“I knew you before you knew me.”
The therapist gently redirected.
No heavy explanations yet.
Isabella asked whether Lupita had pets.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I live somewhere where we don’t have them.”
“Can you get a cat?”
Lupita laughed unexpectedly.
“I think I might someday.”
The first conversation with the daughter she had mourned for six years ended with a discussion about cats.
It was painfully ordinary.
That was good.
Mia was younger.
Her therapists recommended waiting longer.
May you like
Lupita hated waiting.
But after years in which adults used children to satisfy adult needs, she refused to make reunion another form of taking.
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