They bought the house at the end of a cul-de-sac with the children in mind.

They imagined the tan-skinned babies running through a sprinkler in the sticky summer, racing tricycles with cut-up knees, their cheeks spotted with peanut butter and jelly.

They painted the walls in two small rooms. Black and orange for the little boys. Mint green for the girl. They pasted stickers of motorcycles and butterflies. They bought a rubber ducky for the bathtub.

And they promised each other that they would give the children all they could, kisses after bedtime stories and toys to unwrap on Christmas morning and warm arms when the past, the nightmares, crept into their little minds.

In the northernmost part of Georgia, Candice Dean and Jamie Chambliss knew that people would reflect on their Bibles when they saw them — two women in love — and scorn. But they assumed that churchgoers would turn a blind eye for the sake of the children.

Now the doors to the children’s rooms stay closed. Toys gather dust. Pictures are hidden away.

Officials in Atlanta told the couple they need to forget about what happened, that every legal option they had is at a dead end. The paperwork is final.

Still, the women can’t let go.

They keep a thick red binder to prove that something precious was wrongly taken from them. They fill it with letters from neighbors and family and co-workers, letters saying they are nice women, that the children were cared for. They fill it with explanations for every mosquito bite and bloody nose. They fill it with the frantic back and forths with caseworkers. They fill it so a lawyer can argue that what happened wasn’t fair.

And they wait.

Even though they have no rights in this part of the nation, they hope a judge will listen, that someone will care about what they lost.