It happened on a rainy Tuesday night in Columbus, Ohio, the kind of night when the wind rattles windows like a warning. I was heading home from the hospital, exhausted from a double shift. I was thirty four, newly divorced, and so tired that life felt like a long hallway with no doors. Even so, that cry stopped me before my apartment door.
A baby. Wrapped in a thin blue blanket. Left in the dim hallway like a forgotten package. His cheeks were red from crying, his breaths sharp and frightened. I dropped my keys, knelt, and touched his cheek. Warm. Real. Terribly real.
I knocked on doors. Apartment after apartment. No answer. No note. No diaper bag. Nothing except a newborn and the storm outside.
