“Yes, I’m Emma Becker. May I ask who this is?” Emma answered.
“Emma? I’m your social worker, Lisa Andrews. I’ve been reviewing your case and I want to talk to you.” Lisa Andrews replied.
“Of course, but you see I’m actually in Arizona with my biological father and my twin sister. I don’t know a way we can meet.”
“Did your biological parents sign away their rights to you? I’m asking because they’re still considered your parents by law if they didn’t sign away their rights.”
“My father didn’t sign away his rights to me but I have no idea about my mother. I’ll have to ask her.”
“Call your mother then and ask her. After you do that, give me a call back and we’ll proceed from there. Is that fine?”
“Yes, that’s fine. Thank you.”
Emma hung up with her social worker and was processing the information that she had been given unaware that her family was fixing to come in with their own questions. “Who were you talking to, Em?” Sutton asked.
“It was my new social worker and she had quite the information for me. She said that Dad could get custody of me since he didn’t know about me and never signed away his rights. Mom, on the other hand, could get custody as well if she didn’t sign away her rights. Both of our parents will have to undergo DNA testing first and then she said we’ll proceed from there.” Emma explained.
“What?”
“Our parents are still considered my parents by law if neither one of them signed away their rights to me. We don’t know about Mom but we do know that Dad is still considered my father by law since he never signed away his rights to me.”
“How do you plan on asking Mom if she did that?”
“I’m going to call her and then the two of us are heading over to her place to talk to her. What do you think?”
“That sounds fair.”
After talking with Sutton, Emma called Rebecca and explained the situation as her social worker had told her word for word. “Did you sign away your rights to me, Mom? Ms. Andrews told me that if that’s the case, you’re still considered my mother by law just like Dad is still considered my father. She also explained to me that the only way the two of you can receive custody is a DNA test.”
“I didn’t sign away my rights to you or Sutton, Emma. My signature on both papers for the two of you were forged because I had told Alec that I had decided I was going to keep you two and tell your father. What I wanted then is exactly what I wanted now which was for the four of us to become the happy family that was stolen from us by Alec.” Rebecca explained.
“Let me call Ms. Andrews back then and then I’ll get back to you. I told her that I would give her a call back after I spoke to you.”
After Emma gave a call back to Lisa Andrews, she told her exactly what her mother had said. It was arranged that the family would get their DNA testing done at a separate lab in another part of town where they wouldn’t be seen by people they knew. Once they got to the lab and did the test, they had to wait forty-eight hours for the results. “In the case of seventeen-year-old Emma Becker, Mr. Mercer is the father. In the case of seventeen-year-old Emma Becker, Ms. Sewell is the mother,” read the lab technician.
With the results, Lisa Andrews then proceeded to have Ted, Rebecca, and Emma arrive in court in order for the custody hearing which would determine Emma’s fate. Ted’s lawyer was the same lawyer representing him in his divorce from Kristin while Rebecca’s lawyer happened to be a friend of theirs and Alec’s ex-wife, Caroline Ryback. Since both Ted and Rebecca wanted custody, the judge decided that they would have joint custody. However, Emma decided that she wanted a new birth certificate with her real last name and her parents’ names. “Your full name should have been Emma Alexandra and if you want a new birth certificate, then that’s what you’ll get. I love you, sweetie.” Rebecca told her.
