Five years ago, I found a newborn abandoned at my fire station, and made him my son. Just when life felt whole, a woman knocked on my door, shaking with a plea that would unravel everything.
The wind roared that night, battering the windows of Fire Station #14 like a warning. I was midway through my overnight shift, nursing a cup of coffee that tasted more like burnt regret than caffeine, when Joe, my longtime partner, sauntered in with his usual crooked smirk.
“You keep drinking that motor oil, and you’ll be on stomach meds before retirement,” he said, eyeing my cup like it might bite him.
I smirked. “It’s not about taste, it’s about survival. Don’t judge the brew that keeps me upright.”
Joe flopped into the chair across from me, thumbing lazily through an old magazine. Outside, the streets were silent, almost unnervingly so, the kind of stillness that makes every firefighter’s skin prickle.
That’s when we heard it.
A sound, soft, almost swallowed by the storm. A cry.
Joe paused, head tilted. “You hear that?”
“Yeah.” I was already up, my gut telling me this wasn’t just the wind.
We pushed open the front door. Cold air punched us in the face, and the howl of the wind only made the cry more urgent. Then we saw it, tucked into the shadows near the steps.
A basket.
Inside, swaddled in a threadbare blanket, was a newborn. Tiny. Red-faced. Crying.
And alone.
