The agency smelled of lemon cleaner and something harder to name—quiet resignation. The waiting room was lined with chairs too neat, magazines stacked in perfect piles that no one touched. Mara sat there with forms trembling in her lap, her pen scratching signatures that carved deeper than paper. Each line she filled out felt like a surrender she couldn’t take back.
When the counselor asked if she wanted to leave something for the baby, her throat closed. Most mothers, they explained gently, left blankets, small stuffed animals, or handwritten notes. Mara had nothing but debt, fear, and the one thing that had kept her standing through it all—the necklace.
Her hands shook as she unclasped it. For a moment she pressed the pendant against her lips, whispering words she could barely form, a promise she had no idea how to keep: that somehow, one day, it might lead him back to her. The chain was warm, almost alive, as if it understood her grief.
When the time came, she placed it into the folds of the soft blue blanket wrapped around her newborn. She kissed his forehead once, a quick, trembling farewell before they carried him away. Then she stood, empty-armed, and walked out into the cold, the silence of her decision following her like a shadow.
Good story if it lets me connect to the rest of it.