I stayed there with the receiver pressed to my face, listening to emptiness. Later I stumbled outside and curled up on the frozen steps of the post office. I could barely feel my arm, my feet, or the rest of my body. Only the echo of that voice calling me sweetheart.
At dawn, the screech of a metal gate woke me.
An older man in a heavy coat opened the post office and found me there. At first he looked startled, maybe even annoyed. Then he saw my arm—swollen, red, clumsily wrapped in frozen cloth.
He knelt.
“Dear God,” he murmured. “Whose child are you?”
I didn’t answer. I pulled the crumpled flyer from inside my clothes and handed it to him with my good hand.
He read it. Then he looked at me. Then back at the flyer. His eyes widened.
He didn’t ask another question.
He carried me inside, wrapped me in a blanket, and gave me warm sugar water I could barely hold. Then he called the number on the flyer from the counter phone. He gave the address, repeated the town name, and glanced back at me several times.
When he hung up, he came close and said, “They’re coming for you.”
I didn’t know if I believed him.