July 5, 2001

"I don't really get the whole adoption thing," he says to me this morning.

"What don't you get?" I ask.

"If I was born into the Halder family, why don't I get to use that name, too?"

Here's the heart of the ambiguity: the legal reality vs the human one.

"You can use that name if you want to," I tell him. "It can't be your last name, or else people wouldn't know who you are. But you can make it one of your names."

Seven years ago this weekend we went to court and made it official.

"I wish you'd taken a picture inside the courtroom," he said today.

"I felt embarrassed because I was crying," I said. "I was too happy to take a picture."

He smiles.