Did Joy Hunley give away her daughter, or was the baby taken from her?

“Something happened in July of 1981. It triggered a process at the end of which Joy no longer had custody of her toddler daughter. For more than a quarter century, she convinced herself she had made an awful mistake, had signed something she shouldn’t have signed. Over the last few years, though, she had learned new information. She believed she had been the victim of a fraud.

“This was last year, the afternoon of June 26, just before 5. Her attorney brought the records into a small side room and put the papers on the table.

“Somewhere on the consent form in front of her, Joy thought, was going to be the truth — proof of an incomprehensible crime. The other possibility was terrible, too, in its own way — that she had signed it, and had spent more than half her life telling a lie.

“Victim or liar? Wronged or deluded?

“She took another breath.

“She looked at the consent.”