I was driving alone on Christmas Eve when my tire blew on a deserted New Mexico highway. A cry in the darkness led me to a newborn baby in a hatbox. I held her close to warm her and lost my heart to her right there. I raised her as my daughter, but eight years later, someone came to take her back.
I drove down an empty highway on Christmas Eve with both hands on the wheel.
Same ritual as every year: radio off, headlights cutting through the desert dark as I headed to my parents’ house in New Mexico. I told myself I liked the quiet, that I’d chosen that life.
Years ago, I’d driven this same road with a woman in the passenger seat.