Joy White and the daughter she had not seen since she was a 19-day-old newborn hugged, cried and beamed with unrestrained delight at an emotional family celebration in New York last month.
But the American saga has rapidly turned from heart-warming to heartache. And Miss White fears she has lost her child for a second time after the feelgood fairy tale apparently descended into a financial feud over hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Carlina White was raised as Nejdra Nance in nearby Connecticut by Ann Pettway, the woman who is now in custody suspected of abducting her from Harlem Hospital in 1987. As an adult, Carlina, known as Miss Nance, moved to Georgia with her own young daughter Samani.
And she has now flown back to Atlanta, reverted to calling herself "Netty" and barely been in touch with Miss White since those initial few days together – except, says her mother, to ask about an old compensation deal.
"It's like we're two strangers, we don't know each other," Miss White revealed in a television interview last week. "She asked a lot of questions about the money, but it's gone. We don't have the money."
