Seeing Sarah with that baby… it felt like my chest might give out, but in the best possible way. “I know we might not get her. But if there’s even the smallest chance, I need you to tell me we’re taking it.”
“She looks like she belongs with you.”
“We’re taking it,” I replied, and that was the moment the paperwork stopped being paperwork and started being our life.
No one came forward. No one called. The days became weeks, and whether the baby would become ours shifted into the reality that she already was. A few months later, we adopted her.
We named her Betty.
Our daughter grew into the kind of child who rearranged the house just by existing in it. She had opinions about breakfast before she could tie her shoes. She collected rocks from every park we ever crossed.
No one came forward. No one called.
When Betty was six, she climbed into my lap and said, “Daddy, if I had a hundred dads, I’d still pick you.”
“What if one of the others had better snacks?” I joked.
Betty thought about that seriously for a moment. Then she said, “But they can’t be you.”
Those 10 years passed the way good years do: quickly while you’re inside them. And for all the certainty of those years, one quiet question never fully left me.
Who had chosen our station to leave Betty there… and why us?
“Daddy, if I had a hundred dads, I’d still pick you.”
***
It was just after sunset when the knock came last Thursday.
“I’ll get it,” I told Sarah, heading for the door.
A woman stood on the porch in a dark coat and sunglasses she no longer needed in the evening light. Her fingers were pale where they gripped the strap of her bag.
“I need to talk to you about the baby from 10 years ago,” she said without warning.
Every muscle in my body locked. Behind me, I heard Sarah’s chair scrape.
“I need to talk to you about the baby from 10 years ago.”
“Because I left her there,” the woman finished. “And I didn’t leave her to chance.” Her hand trembled as she lifted her sunglasses. “I chose exactly you.”
The second I saw her face, a memory hit me.
Rain. An alley. A 17-year-old girl, half-frozen and trying not to look like she needed help.
“Amy?” I whispered.
Amy looked relieved and heartbroken at once. “You remember me.”
The second I saw her face, a memory hit me.
Sarah stepped up beside me. “Arthur, who is this?”
I stared at Amy and said, “She’s someone I met a long time ago.”
It had been pouring rain back then. I was leaving the station after a long shift when I saw Amy in an alley, sitting on an overturned milk crate with her arms wrapped around herself so tightly it looked painful.
I stopped. I gave her my jacket, bought her coffee and a sandwich, and sat with her for three hours while the rain pounded the street.
“She’s someone I met a long time ago.”
At one point, she asked, “Why are you doing this?”
I said, “Because sometimes it helps when someone notices.”
Amy stared at me for a long moment. Then she nodded.
Standing on my porch now, she recounted, “You told me I was worth more than what the world was giving me.”
Sarah folded her arms. “Arthur, you never told me any of this.”
“I didn’t think it was a story that belonged to me,” I answered.
“You told me I was worth more than what the world was giving me.”
Amy shook her head. “It belonged to me. And I never stopped carrying it.”
Sarah looked at her carefully. “What does this have to do with Betty?”
Amy drew in a slow breath and said, “Everything.”
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