I tried again, but my throat closed the way it always had. All that came out was a thin, frightened breath.
There was a second of silence.
Then the woman made a sound I have never forgotten. It was the sound of a heart breaking open.
“Lila?” she whispered, then cried out, “Lila, is that you? Sweetheart, please talk to me. Please. Tell me where you are. Tell me anything. Anything at all.”
Tears ran hot down my frozen face. I gripped the receiver until my fingers hurt. I wanted to say Mom. I wanted to say come get me. I wanted to say I’m cold. But fear, pain, and years of silence were heavier than words.
Then the line went dead.
The dollar had run out.
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.
I fell asleep in the chair, burning with fever. I dreamed of a woman stroking my hair without hurting me. I dreamed of hot soup, clean blankets, and a door opening to let me in.
I woke when a truck screeched to a stop outside.
The post office door flew open. A thin woman rushed in, her coat buttoned wrong, her hair disheveled, her eyes red and wide with hope so desperate it hurt to look at. She stopped the moment she saw me.
I froze too.