When the alarms blare, I move into swift action. Carefully, I use the armholes to reach my patient. With delicate hands, I stroke the baby’s chest, and just like that, he remembers to breathe again. I sigh as the alarms go silent without any more help from me.

The charge nurse pops her head in. “You need any help?”

After glancing over my shoulder, I shake my head. “We’ve got this.” Looking down at my patient, I say, “Don’t we?”

Of course, he can’t answer. Not yet, anyway. About the size of my palm, he’s too small to be outside of the womb. I will do everything in my power to see he survives.

Peggy walks in. “You’re putting your heart on the line with this one.”

I glance again at the tiny person struggling to stay alive.

“He’s going to make it.”

The demand falls on deaf ears. He’s here because of his mother’s choices.

“She hasn’t come in, has she?” Peggy asks.

I shake my head. “She’s fifteen and scared.” I close my eyes as I exhale.

“I hear she’s given up custody.”

I purse my lips. “She lives on the street. No way to raise a child.”

“True,” my boss says. “But who’s raising her?” She waves off any reply from me. “Anyway, expect a social worker to come sometime today.”

She leaves me alone and I can’t help but think of my own mother. Not the wonderful woman who raised me, but the one who gave me up. I have to be a shit for craving to learn her identity when my mother gave me everything I could ever need—love, family, and the tools to be successful in life. Yet, it’s like a hole exists somewhere in my heart.

To carve away at the ache, I do more than my duty as I take care of the tiny infant. I give him the physical contact that’s shown to help babies thrive through touch, words, and even a song I hum.

By lunchtime, I’m starving. With only thirty minutes, I scarf down food as my friend, Beth, fills me in on the latest gossip.

“Five o’clock.” She subtly points. “Dr. McDreamy.”

I glance up in time to see said hot doctor all the nurses swoon over.

“First of all, he looks nothing like that actor. His hair is blond and he’s a lot taller,” I point out.

“And he’s perfect.”

“And married.”

She lets out a long-suffering sigh. “I would so have his babies.”

“Doesn’t he have like eight of them already?” I tease.

Though eight is an overstatement, it’s not by much.

“Is eight really enough?” She speaks like her head is in the clouds. “He’s so nice. I swear, they broke the mold when they made him.”

“You realize you have no chance. Have you seen his wife? She’s gorgeous.”

“With a body that couldn’t have had one child, let alone all those kids.” Although her words seem filled with jealousy, there isn’t any malice in them. She smiles to herself. “Then again, I’d let him mount and ride me every night of the week. I’d stay pregnant.”

“That’s why they have so many kids,” I concur.

“And when I wasn’t, I’d maintain my figure knowing there were several women waiting in the wings to take my place.”

“Exactly. But I’ve never seen him look at anyone like he looks at her.”

Beth exhales. “So unfair. I swear.”

“Set your eyes on someone else.”

As if his ears were burning, a different doctor hottie walks over. “Ladies.”

Beth moons at him with big eyes. “Joshua.”

His focus connects with me. “Andi, how are things in the NICU?”

“Busy.”

“Too busy to say—”

I stop him before he can ask. I can’t be completely sure he’s about to ask me out, but shut it down anyway.

“You know, I have to get back or Peggy’s going to be all over my shit.” I take my tray and head to the door with a wave.

Joshua doesn’t totally give up and calls after me. “The NICU is boring. You should join us in the ER.”

Half-turning, I continue my retreat. “I’ll leave all that fun to you and Beth.”

I wink at her and she gives me the biggest grin before flashing Joshua with it.

When I make it back to the neonatal unit, a girl way too young to be here stands before my tiny charge. I take the opportunity to introduce myself.

“Hi, I’m Andi.”

I hold out my hand. She turns slowly with eyes that haven’t seen enough years, but feel ancient.

“They’re kicking me out of this joint today. I thought I would say goodbye.”

She hasn’t introduced herself, but I know her to be the yet-to-be-named boy’s mother. Curiosity had me walking through the maternity ward on my way out yesterday in search of her.

“It’s better this way,” she says, though it’s obvious she’s trying to convince herself and not me.

“How do you know?”

Part of me wishes I’d said nothing. I shouldn’t be trying to convince her not to give her son a better home. Then again, I ask because I can’t ask my biological mom, whom I haven’t found yet.

Her eyes morph into steel. “I live on the streets, lady. That’s no life for him.”

I know this, but the abandoned child in me needs absolution.

“Where are your parents?”

Her face turns cynical. “You mean the woman who would have sold me for her next hit had I not run? I mean, if someone was going to get paid for my virginity, shouldn’t it have been me?”

A pain so deep has my eyes burning, but I know that if I cry, she’ll make like a scared rabbit and flee.

“There are places you can go that will help you.”

She laughs bitterly. “Yeah, where some foster dad can get touchy-feely. No thanks.”

Her feet shift and I hold up my hands. “Wait. At least write him a letter.”

“For what?” In her expression, there is a desperate hope that I have answers.

“So he knows why you gave him up.”

Her chuff is more cynicism that I can’t fix in the few minutes I’ll have with her. “He’ll get that I couldn’t take care of him. Why else would I give my kid up? I wish my mother had given me up.”

She wipes tears from her face with the back of her hand as I swallow the bitter pill of her words.

“It’s better if he hears it from you.”

“Who’s to say his new parents will give him the letter?”

I shrug. “They may not. But when he comes looking for you—”

“I’ll be dead.” There’s such a fierceness in her eyes, it’s easy to see she believes it.

“When he finds you,” I begin again, “you can say with a clear conscience that you wrote him explaining why you did what you did out of love.”

For a second, hope flashes in her eyes as they search mine. Her lip trembles and her voice is a mere whisper. “I don’t have any paper.”

As much as I don’t want to leave her for fear she’ll run, I nod and go out to the desk. When I come back, she’s facing the incubator with one hand on it as she peers down at her son.

“You can touch him.” She shakes her head and I ask a different question. “What’s his name?”

She doesn’t look back at me when she speaks. “I didn’t want to give him one. You know, so his parents could name him. But they said I had to fill out the birth certificate.” I wait and say nothing. Time is like a gift. I wish I could give them both. “I named him Liam, like his dad.”

“Where is he?” It’s a risk to ask, but I feel some sort of responsibility for both children before me, the mother and the son who equally have no one but me at the moment.

Guilt meets me eye to eye. “He got locked up trying to get me something to eat.”

And my heart cries for the child’s mother and the pain that fills her eyes.

I don’t push anymore, saying nothing, and watch her write for a long time filling the page with her truths. It’s like I can physically see the burden lifting from her with each stroke of the pen. When she hands the paper back to me, I trade her. I give her cash, all that I have in my pocket, and a number for a teen shelter. Her tears are painful until we are both crying. By the time she leaves, she promises to use them both wisely, but we both know better. I keep hope when I watch her walk away and wonder if I’ve done enough.

When the social worker arrives, I explain my visit and hand her the letter. I can only pray it doesn’t get lost. Maybe one orphaned child won’t wonder why his mother left him.

My heart is heavy when I make it home later. I lie sleepless with the glow of the lamp next to my bed and run an envelope around and around in my hand. Inside it contains words I wrote so long ago. I remember each and every one as though I’d only penned them today. All it needs is a stamp and I can confess all my secrets, like how I really feel about the only man I’ve ever loved and what I’ve been doing all this time without him.

I’d been strong enough to do it two nights ago after sharing a bottle of wine with my neighbor. But then scrolling through the channels, a flash of Chase’s picture had me stopping and turning up the volume. He hadn’t been alone in the shot. A woman, beautiful like a supermodel, stood next to him. The headline—Chase Wilde Engaged to Be Married—was beneath the picture.

Tears fall from my eyes as I shove the letter back into the drawer. The strength I need doesn’t return. Though I wonder for the millionth time if I did the right thing by walking away so long ago and not contacting him. I can’t selfishly change the course of his life. I love him enough to want him to be happy. I loved him that much when I let him go. Deep down I know I could have gone to Italy with him when he asked. I’d chosen not to. At the time, I thought what I wanted was independence from my family and a degree that could lead me to a career of my own. Who am I to selfishly want him back when I had blown my chance? How could I spring my carefully written words on him almost three years too late?