His mind drifted backward, twenty-four years falling away in the span of a heartbeat.
The elementary school parking lot had been a vast sea of empty black asphalt at four-thirty in the morning. Harold had guided his old Ford truck into his usual spot and cut the rattling engine. It was a terrible vehicle with a rusted-out bed and a heater that only managed to warm the driver’s side, but it got him to work. He had sat in the cab for a peaceful moment, a steaming thermos of cheap coffee in one hand and his heavy brass key ring in the other. He truly loved this specific part of the day. The absolute stillness. The massive brick building standing dark and dormant, holding its breath before the chaos of hundreds of children flooded the halls. It was just Harold, the school, and the mental list of things that needed to be put right.
He let himself in through the rusted side entrance, walking the silent main hallway by the narrow beam of his heavy flashlight. His first stop was always the gymnasium. A copper pipe had been steadily leaking behind the aluminum bleachers, and he wanted to inspect the temporary patch job he had applied on Friday afternoon.
He pushed open the heavy double doors of the gym and stopped dead in his tracks.
Something was crying.
He froze, straining to listen. It wasn’t the stray neighborhood cat that sometimes snuck into the crawlspace. It wasn’t the winter wind whistling through the ancient tin ventilation ducts. It was human. It was a baby.
Harold stood rigidly in the doorway. He swept the flashlight’s beam across the polished hardwood floor, tracking the sound as it bounced wildly off the concrete block walls. The circle of light finally came to rest in the far back corner, near the folded gymnastics mats.
He crossed the massive room with agonizing slowness, his heavy work boots echoing like gunshots with every step he took. The frantic crying grew louder, more desperate.
Sitting on the cold floor was a plain brown cardboard box, roughly the size of a standard case of copy paper. Tucked inside was a soft blue blanket decorated with tiny, faded yellow ducks. And tangled within the fleece was a baby. She was impossibly tiny, her face flushed dark red, screaming with every ounce of air her little lungs could pull in.
Harold dropped to his knees. The joints popped loudly against the unforgiving wood floor. He aimed the flashlight slightly away from her face, letting the ambient light illuminate the box. Pinned to the very edge of the duck blanket with a dull safety pin was a torn scrap of lined notebook paper. Five words were scrawled across it in hurried, shaky handwriting.
Please take care of her.
There was no name. There was no date. There was absolutely no explanation. It was nothing more than a desperate plea from someone who was already miles away in the dark.
Harold stared at the tiny, thrashing infant. She couldn’t have been more than two or three days old. Her tiny fists were clamped tight, her eyes squeezed completely shut, and every frantic breath culminated in a raw, ragged howl.
He hadn’t held a baby since Daniel. The very last time he had cradled an infant was sitting in a sterile hospital room. Harold remembered the exact moment. He had been quietly telling his sick son a rambling, whispered story about a magic dog that could fly over mountains. Suddenly, the medical monitors had started beeping with terrifying speed. And then, they had simply stopped.
Kneeling over the cardboard box, Harold realized his large hands were shaking violently.
He reached down into the cardboard and gently scooped her up. She weighed practically nothing, as light as a handful of dry leaves. He pressed her securely against the heavy canvas of his chest. His single, calloused hand covered the entire expanse of her fragile back, and her small, warm head fit perfectly into the rough cup of his palm.
“Hey,” Harold whispered, his voice thick with an emotion he hadn’t felt in years. “Hey now, it’s all right.”
She didn’t stop crying immediately, but she instinctively turned her face into the rough collar of his brown jacket. Slowly, miraculously, her tiny clenched fists loosened just a fraction.
Harold stood alone in the cavernous, pitch-black gymnasium, holding a stranger’s abandoned newborn, and he had absolutely no idea what to do next.
So, he did the only thing he could think of. He kept talking to her.
“My name’s Harold,” he murmured into the dark room, rocking on his heels. “I’m the janitor here. I fix things. That’s what I do. So let’s get you fixed up. All right?”
The baby released a shuddering breath that wasn’t quite a cry—more of a tiny, wet hiccup.
Harold took that as a binding agreement. He carried her carefully down the long, shadowed hallway to the front office and reached for the telephone to call the police.