The road was coated in that deceptive layer of ice that looks harmless until it isn’t, reflecting streetlights like glass. I had just finished a late shift, the kind where your eyes burn and your thoughts feel delayed, when I saw her at the bus stop. She wasn’t pacing or gesturing at a phone. She stood completely still beneath a flimsy plastic shelter, holding a baby tight against her chest as the wind cut through everything. The baby was wrapped in a thin blanket, one tiny hand exposed, fingers red and stiff. I drove past her, my instincts screaming that I had children, that I could not take risks, that this was how bad stories began. For five seconds, I obeyed fear. Then another voice rose beneath it, quieter but stronger, asking what I would want someone to do if that were me, if that were my baby. My hands moved before my doubts could win. I slowed, pulled over, and rolled down the window, my heart hammering. Up close, she looked utterly worn down—dark circles carved deep beneath her eyes, lips cracked from cold, hair pulled into a bun that had given up hours earlier. When I asked if she was okay, she startled, then stepped closer, her voice calm in the way of someone who had already accepted the worst. She had missed the last bus. Her phone was dead. Her sister lived far away. She had gotten the times wrong. That was all she said. The baby whimpered, and something inside me broke open. Before fear could speak again, I heard myself telling her to get in the car. She protested weakly, said I didn’t know her, that she couldn’t impose, but the cold was winning. When warm air hit the baby, he cried—a thin, tired sound that felt like an accusation and a plea all at once. His name was Oliver. He was two months old. Her name was Laura. She apologized over and over during the drive, promised she would leave early, insisted she didn’t need food, said she wasn’t a burden. I kept telling her the same thing: I chose this. And for the first time that night, she laughed, just a little, the sound fragile but real.
