I was eight months pregnant, wedged into a crowded tram, counting stops like breaths. A woman climbed on with a baby and a bag big enough for another human. She looked worn thin—eyes hollow, shoulders sagging, that deep kind of tired you feel in your bones. No one moved. My body did before my mind caught up. I stood and offered her my seat.
She looked at me—confused, maybe grateful—and sat without a word. When her stop came, she adjusted the baby and slipped something into my tote as she passed. It was wet. Cold. By the time I pulled it out, she was gone.
Inside the Ziploc bag was a folded $50 bill and a note, the ink bleeding like it had been crying:
You’re kind. Please forgive me. Call this number.
I brought it home, unsure what to do. My husband, Marc, said it was a scam. But something in me couldn’t let it go. The next morning, I called.
A woman answered. “You actually called,” she said, her voice cracking. Her name was Tahlia. She told me she’d seen me on the tram—pregnant, kind—and that she’d done something she didn’t know how to undo.
We met at a café near the hospital. She looked fragile, her baby gnawing a rubber giraffe. Between sips of tea, she told me everything.
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