Frandy sees his relationship with Cassie’s twins as a second chance at fatherhood. He was 16 when his girlfriend told him, standing in the stairwell of their high school, that she was pregnant. He was scared — scared that he wouldn’t be able to support the baby, scared to tell his mother. Mostly, though, he recalled, “I loved my girlfriend and I thought I was going to be with her forever.”
He wanted to be the kind of father his father wasn’t: present. He quit smoking weed with friends, got a job at Toys “R” Us, and started stuffing his un-cashed paychecks into a piggy bank.
In some ways, child-support enforcement is actually having a negative effect on children.
But despite his efforts, the couple called it quits before his daughter was a month old. “We couldn’t stop fighting,” he said. They attempted to co-parent for a few months more, until, one day, Frandy came over to find his baby’s mother with a bulging bruise on her forehead. He attacked the man who was responsible, a mutual friend, and landed himself behind bars for attempted murder. He served 22 months in prison. After he got caught carrying a weapon while on parole, he served an additional three years.