Halfway to forever by Karen Kingsbury

244 The doctor nodded. "Traced her to a women's shelter. Seventeen-year-old runaway, clean her entire
pregnancy. Got hooked up with one wrong guy and overdosed in a single hour." He ran his thumb over the
baby's forehead. "It's a miracle they got here alive. The baby rode in on his mother's lap." He lifted his
eyes to Hannah's. "If she'd had even a fender bender he could have been killed."
Hannah's throat was thick with sadness. She stared at the
baby, ignoring the tears that fell on his blanket. "What happens
now?"
"Police will be here any minute. They'll take the baby to a
short-term foster home until Social Services can determine the
next of kin."
Hannah nodded and swallowed hard so she could speak.
"Poor baby"
And poor family who would care for him over the next few
weeks. She couldn't imagine having this precious boy for even a
day and then letting him go. Even now, after their short hour
together, there was no question about it. Hannah had bonded
with him. It made sense. In his mother's dying hour, Hannah had
been the one to love him, feed him. Pray for him. Of course she
was connected to the baby
The doctor studied him once more. "He looks like an angel."
Hannah nodded and smiled through her tears. "I hope he gets
to live like one."
Edna Parsons got the call just after noon that a healthy baby boy needed short-term foster care. Her job
was to find next of kin-a task she took far more seriously since the incident with the Bronzans. If there
was a grandparent or aunt or uncle or father somewhere in the world capable of raising the child, Edna
would find out.
240
She met the police at the house where the baby would live for
the next few days. Once he was safely placed, Edna visited St. Anne's Shelter, where the baby's mother
had been living until her drug overdose.
Edna met with a pleasant woman who ran the shelter. There were Scripture verses stuck to various places
on her office wall. "Milly Wheeler was the mother's name." The woman bit her
lip and brushed at the comers of her eyes. "She was seventeen, a runaway"
"I see." Edna scribbled the details on her notepad.
"We do drug testing here." The woman lifted one shoulder. "Milly was clean through her pregnancy. She
attended Bible studies twice a day" The woman's voice caught. "I...I really thought she was going to make
it."
The woman explained that in the course of their Bible studies, Milly had shared much about her life and
background.
"I've got it all right here." The woman handed a folder to Edna. "It's Milly's file."
Edna opened it and the story began to unfold. Milly's mother was a drug addict, a street person in San
Francisco, who died three years ago from an overdose. At first Milly tried to live on her own, scrounging
food from other street people and digging
through trash bins behind restaurants when all else failed.
"She was determined not to follow her mother's footsteps, to stay away from drugs." The woman frowned.
"She kept that determination until she turned fifteen."
At that point, Milly apparently assessed her options and decided there was only one way she could make