Mary Poppins, My Ass

My best friend Anna and her husband Brad are the most charitable, humanitarian people I know. A huge percentage of their income and Anna's professional time are given away annually to Ethiopian organizations so their citizens can have better lives.
When Anna and Brad wanted a child, they could have gone to any top level adoption agency and easily qualified for a healthy American infant.
Instead, they went through a mountain of red tape and traveled to Romania to adopt Andrei, who spent his first year in a bleak orphanage crib with no clothes or toys, minimal nutrition and scant nurturing care. They probably spent close to $50,000 to give this Romanian baby a better life and a real future.
Even today, they are providing Andrei with everything he needs to compensate for his abysmal start in life, including speech pathology, special tutoring and psychological treatment for his developmental shortcomings.
Andrei even has a new nanny, recently hired when his first nanny left to further pursue her education.
Nancy is the new nanny's name.
We were all a little hinky about Nancy at first because, although she had good references and presented herself well, there was something about her that seemed a little off.
She didn't make much eye contact and her adult conversation seemed like she was just telling people what they wanted to hear. She was a Yes Man, but we sensed perhaps some veiled hostility and resentment behind her passive smile.
But she was good with Andrei and he liked her, so Brad and Anna gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Yesterday, Anna's bank called and told her Nancy had been passing herself off as Anna and sucking her checking account dry for the last couple of months.
Nancy called Anna last night with a dramatic confession, a sob story and a plea for a second chance. Nancy couldn't even remember exactly how much money she'd embezzled, but we know it was in the thousands. Anna listened to her calmly without much reaction.
Then Nancy had her 17-year-old son call Anna and beg her not to press charges against his mother. Can you imagine a mother compelling her child to make such a call?
Even now, Anna and Brad are considering whether to press charges.
Yes, a common criminal conned them into trusting her with their child while she ripped them off on a weekly basis, and they are considering what to do.
I can appreciate Anna and Brad's spirituality and their willingness to forgive.
But I want Nancy to be thrown in prison for what she did. I want justice for my friends.
Once I know she's behind bars with all the other criminals and con artists, I'll be just as forgiving as they are.