For The Record

Seventeen-year-old Cameron Brooks has spent three years doing what the adults around him could not: keeping the lights on, getting his little sister to school, and holding their family together.

Now he has been called to testify in a family-court hearing that could permanently separate eight-year-old Talia from their mother.

After ninety-four days of sobriety, Renee Brooks believes she deserves the opportunity to rebuild what addiction and grief nearly destroyed. Social Services believes Tali...