For forty years, I lived unseen. I’m Martha, a janitor who worked night shifts to give my children—Diana, Carly, and Ben—a better life. As they grew up, they grew distant, and I became an afterthought. Then one Tuesday at a rest stop on I-87, everything changed. While mopping, I heard a cry and found a newborn boy abandoned behind a trash bin, wrapped in a stained blanket with a note begging for his safety. Holding him close as help arrived, I whispered the words I once longed to hear myself: you are safe now.
