In 2008, the state of Nebraska made a very big mistake. The legislature passed L.B. 157, a safe haven law decriminalizing child abandonment. But the law, meant for infants, failed to specify an age cap for the children it was intended to protect. Before the law was amended, 36 children had been legally abandoned. None were infants.

 

Thicker Than Water imagines what happens when one such child, Michael, grows up without knowing the truth about his past or how he came into the foster system. When he’s contacted out of the blue by his birth mother, Debbie, he’s initially thrilled, but her motives come into question when she reveals she needs an organ transplant—and wants Michael to be the donor. Complicating matters are Michael’s resentful half-brother, Tom, and overprotective fiancée, Abby. When Abby starts digging into Debbie’s past to uncover the truth about Michael’s abandonment, it threatens to tear the new family apart. But who has Michael’s best interest at heart, and who is his real family?