Twelve years ago, my life shifted in the blink of an eye—at five in the morning, on a Tuesday that felt ordinary, until it wasn’t. I was forty-one, driving a massive trash truck through streets most people ignored unless something went wrong. The cold cut deep that morning, burning lungs, stinging eyes. At home, my husband Steven was recovering from surgery. I’d changed his bandages, made him eat, kissed his forehead, and told him, “Text me if you need anything.”
“Go save the city from banana peels, Abbie,” he joked weakly.
Life felt small, steady, manageable. Bills, routines, quiet dreams of kids we’d quietly shelved. Then I turned a corner, and there it was: a stroller.
Alone. On the sidewalk. Not near a driveway, not tucked behind a car. Just… there.
Inside were two babies—twin girls, maybe six months old, wrapped in mismatched blankets. Pink cheeks, tiny puffs of breath in the frigid air. Alive.
No doors opened, no footsteps approached. Just silence.
“Hey, sweethearts,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “Where’s your mom?”
No note. No ID. Just them. My hands trembled as I called 911, explaining through a cracking voice that I’d found two infants abandoned in the cold. The dispatcher guided me, telling me to keep them safe, out of the wind. I leaned the stroller against a brick wall, knocked on doors, finally sat on the curb beside them.
“I’m here,” I said. “I won’t leave you.”
Police arrived, followed by a CPS worker. She lifted each baby into her arms, and my chest tightened.
“Where are they going?” I asked.
“A temporary foster home,” she said. “They’ll be safe tonight.”
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