Opening their hearts - and their home

Fields Corner residents Dawnmarie Hines (left) and her husband, Paul Novak, holding Paul Jr., have added Samantha, 15, and Terrence Pinson, 14, to their family through adoption. (Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff)

When Dawnmarie Hines got the call from her best friend's younger sister more than a year ago, she did not hesitate.

The 15-year-old girl sounded distraught. She and her brother had been living with their grandmother in New York. Though she loves her nana, the girl missed her friends back in the Boston area. But if they came back to the city, the girl told Hines, the state's Department of Children and Families would put them in separate foster homes.

Hines had known the siblings all of their lives and knew of their moves from home to home after their mother died more than 10 years ago. There were no immediate family members in the area able to step up and take them in permanently.

So Hines did the only thing she could: She told them to come home to her.

"When she called me, it touched my heart," said Hines, sitting in the kitchen of her Fields Corner home recently. "I had tears in my eyes. I knew. I didn't second-guess myself. I said, 'I want these children to come home with me.' "

Immediately after the children moved in, Hines and her boyfriend, Paul Novak, applied through the Department of Children and Families to adopt them. And after more than a year and countless visits from social workers, their adoption of Samantha Pinson, 15, and her brother, Terrence, 14, became official.

Earlier this month, on National Adoption Day, Hines and Novak and more than 160 families participated in adoption ceremonies held at seven courthouses across the state. All told, 208 children gained new families in the ceremonies statewide. The day is meant to encourage more families and individuals to provide permanent homes for children in foster care.

More than 10,000 children in Massachusetts are living in foster care, the majority of them waiting to be reunited with their birth families. Some 2,400 children are in the process of being adopted, and 600 more are in need of adoptive parents, according to the Department of Children and Families, formerly known as the Department of Social Services.

Children who are older, who have severe disabilities, or who are members of a sibling group are the hardest to place, adoption officials said.

In Fields Corner, the Hines-Novak-Pinson family is taking shape. Hines is only 30. She lives with Novak, 29, and their 4-year-old son, Paul, on the top floor of her family's three-decker. Her sister lives next door.

They are not rich, but they have enough space to give Samantha and Terrence their own bedrooms.

As children, Hines and one of the Pinsons' older sisters were inseparable friends in the neighborhood, going to concerts and hanging out at each other's houses.

Hines would come to know and love her friend's family, especially younger siblings Samantha and Terrence. She was around when their mother died, when Samantha was 5. The two older siblings couldn't take care of the younger ones, Hines said.

"They've had a lot of problems since their mom passed," Hines said of the teens' birth family. So Terrence and Samantha were bounced around from one relative's home to the next, from Plymouth to Quincy to Braintree and eventually to New York.

"It was rocky roads," Hines said. "It was here, there, and everywhere."

To cope, Samantha built a wall around herself. She seemed happy, but no one knew what was really going on inside.

"I let things just go by me," said Samantha, now a freshman at Charlestown High School.

"I wouldn't care, 'cause like it happened so much I was like, whatever. It just kept happening."

Samantha and Terrence stayed close, though. They'd tell each other jokes, discuss their day, or plan things to do the next day. Their bond made dealing with their lives easier.

"We were bounced around left and right, and all we had were each other," Terrence said.

Hines, who said her family was the only stable one the teens knew, said she'd had enough after they were sent to New York. She didn't want to worry about them lingering in the foster care system.

At their home in Fields Corner last week, Paul was busy on the computer, and he needed Terrence's help. Samantha chatted with her new mom. Novak put a turkey in the refrigerator.

Life is good now.

"It's better than usual," said Terrence, who is in the eighth grade at Little House Alternative Middle School in Dorchester.

When asked to describe what parts of his life are better, he responded, "What's not better?"

Samantha reluctantly showed off her new room to a stranger.

"It's messy," she said.

The room had all the signs of a hurried cleanup - the green-and-white comforter splashed across the bed, stuff poking out from underneath it.

A mischievous smile spread across her face.

The room is full of teenage bloom. Her name, etched in bubbled letters, hangs on the wall alongside pictures of herself and her brother through the years.

"She likes to draw her name," Hines said, laughing.

It's a good sign.

"She gets to be in a steady . . . relaxed home," Hines said. "She can be a teenager now. Now she can be happy."

Meghan Irons can be reached at mirons@globe.com.