Willow readjusted the blanket around the little boy’s face several times before her eyes fixed on the entrance to Thomas Jefferson Hospital where she had given birth twelve days before. A valet dashed between cars, opening and closing doors, taking tips, and retrieving keys to parked cars. She decided that she would leave Warren at the entrance, in his car seat, with his diaper bag on the ground beside him. According to the Safe Haven Law in Pennsylvania: if the baby is under 28 days old and hasn’t been hurt, you will not get in trouble with the police. That was all she needed to know.

Around the time she decided to give the child away, she made a vow to herself and committed it to memory eighteen times a day: I will not look back because I have my whole life ahead of me. If I look back, I will miss the opportunities that are before me. She repeated it to herself three times in the morning after coffee, a box of Danishes, a pack of bacon, and cigarettes, six times in the afternoon, and nine times in the evening after Warren had fallen asleep. She used an old, battered Buddhist Prayer Bead Bracelet she stole from one of the girls in the shelter where she stayed when she was not getting along with her parents. It was either give the child up or suicide. She thought about it, at least once a week for the last three years, and daily when there was snow on the ground.

The last thing she was going to do was use a child to disguise the harsh and erosive thought that she had no purpose in life. Too many women used children as a substitute for happiness and joy. She was a morbidly obese, clinically depressed twenty-three-year-old, but she refused to be one of them. All the strength she had each day was set aside to eat, use the bathroom, and reposition her body every two hours. Mustering up the energy to care for a small human being was out of her reach and she knew it.

Willow’s mother told her that the anguish and pain she felt was all in her head, as if she could just switch brains with another person for the day. Her father worked numerous odd jobs and had a dog-like devotion to his childhood friends, so he was rarely home. When he was, he never acknowledged Willow’s presence. It was as if there was a force field between them. Maybe it was all the snacks, processed foods and drinks she consumed? Enough for a small party.

*

By the time Willow was twelve, she stopped dreaming. But before, she had a recurring dream of being chased through her house. She would call out to her father, a football field away, standing in the middle of what looked like a war zone. Thick, dark blood oozed out of his eyes and ears. He was screaming, clawing away at his neck. Clouds of smoke and the angry sound of missiles dropping from the sky made the earth shake until she quietly relieved her bladder. It wasn’t until she smelled the strong scent of urine that she knew she was safe and in her bed.

“Dad, what does this dream mean?” Willow asked her father one morning.

“I don’t know, girl.”

“Do you…do you love me, dad?” She was almost too scared to ask.

“Love? You are too old to be believing in love, Willow.” He whispered, fixing his gaze on his feet. “It’s not just you either. I don’t love anyone. Not even your mother, if you want me to be honest. We just know which settings not to bother when it comes to the other.” He frowned.

Willow stopped dreaming after that.

*

She wrote down everything Warren had done since the day he was born inside a small notebook. The brand of formula she fed him, the number of ounces he consumed during a feeding, how many diapers he used in a day, the name, phone number, and address of his pediatrician, the day and time his umbilical cord came off, and the brand of diapers she used. The only thing she refused to do was to have the child circumcised. That was because Warren’s father was from Uganda and against the practice. Everything else Willow inked in perfect sentences inside of the tiny book: hours slept, times he vomited, burped, and had gas. One of the book’s strongest points were the particulars of her delivery from the time of her intake to the time the hospital discharged her. Despite omitting her vagina size and the smell of rust coming from the blood mixed with feces, it explained in great detail what women go through when they give birth. The nurses were amazed at her focus and determination to write down everything as it was happening.

“I’m not used to first-time mothers being so hyper focused during delivery.” The doctor said scrubbing his hands at the sink. “Are you sure you’re not neurodivergent, Ms. Young?”

“I don’t know what that means. But what if I am?” Willow answered. “Can you spell it for me?”

He sounded each letter out carefully and then said, “Doesn’t matter. You’re still eighty percent more impressive than most first time mothers I’ve ever met.”

Willow wanted to get everything right for whoever would be responsible for the care of her son. If they were going to be concerned about anything, let it be his favorite colors and the books they would read to him. Maybe even the parks they would spend time together at and the solid foods they would introduce to his palate once he started teething? Her aim was for them not to wonder or worry about his first twelve days on earth.

She knew lots of women and men who gave no thought to the children they gave birth to. She was not one of them. Warren’s father said that he was not sticking around because “children are complicated,” so her intent was to make things as easy as possible for the boy’s new family.

Willow’s mother smiled when she told her that she was putting the child up for adoption. Her father said, “It don’t matter to me.” Because he thought infants are not vital—that’s why no one cares when they get harmed or hurt. She could not count the number of tears she cried that night. It was over a million.

I will not look back because I have my whole life ahead of me. If I look back, I will miss the opportunities that are before me.
Willow kept her eyes on the hospital entrance. The valet worker was checking his phone and Warren…dear Warren, so small, so weak, and so vulnerable. He cannot be left to fend for himself; he cannot have a mother who struggles with depression, weighs 432 pounds, and only stands up to walk to the bathroom or the kitchen to make something to eat for herself.

Willow comes from a line of people who never knew the word dignity. She can tell by the way Warren smiles that he would be a breeze of fresh air to her family, and it would be for this very reason they would aim to destroy him. Willow was soft and good-natured until she was thirteen. Then, she learned to mirror her parents’ hostility. That was the end of her kindness. When she was fourteen and pulled a knife on her mother, her father said it was the only way she could gain her mother’s respect as a woman.

No, her son would not stand a chance. Plus, he would eventually have to start sleeping in the bed. He couldn’t sleep on the floor forever. What if she rolled over on him? She knew that was a thing. SIDS. When she gave birth, it was the only thing the social worker talked about before Warren was discharged, so she lied and said that they had a crib and a playpen at home. Maybe she should have had the hospital deliver one? She did not see the point since she knew she was not going to keep him.

The baby smiled a lot, too. Which made her smile. Her parents didn’t like that.

“What the hell are you smiling for?” her mother asked.

“Warren is smiling at me, so I am smiling back.”

“You’re not going to be doing all of that damn smiling when he gets older. Believe me!”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. So, stop all that damn smiling. You look goofy!”

A small blue and white card was hidden at the bottom of the gift bag she received when she left the hospital. No larger than one of those business cards doctors give to their patients that has the date of their next appointment on it. If she was not paying attention, she might have missed it.

NOT READY TO BE A MOM? We can help you!

While she loaded up on French fries, frozen pizza, and a bag of chicken nuggets, a thought lingered: What if her son lived with someone else? Could he grow up to be smart, active, happy and healthy?

She was thirty-nine weeks pregnant. During the next two weeks, she called and spoke to a woman at the 800 number on the back of the card, who reassured her that, even though she could not give Willow any details about where her son would end up, the baby would be taken care of. The woman on the phone also prompted Willow to think about things she had never thought about before, like God, and her purpose, and how poor she was…not just financially, but spiritually broken and emotionally tormented by people, like her parents, who were too beaten down to do anything else.

Willow knew she had been stripped down to the core, to bare bones, to nothing. She used food and sleep to cope with a feeling of worthlessness, with having less. She believed that if Warren were raised with her as his mother, there would be no way out of hardship and doomed despair for him.

“I will never discuss my son again after I give him up,” was the last thing Willow said to the Safe Haven woman.

Even if his father wanted to talk about him, she would not engage. Any discussion or conversation about the infant born on the tenth of November, weighing twelve pounds and eight ounces, coming in at twenty-five inches long, with brown eyes, ten toes, ten fingers, and a small L-shaped birthmark on his upper right shoulder would be forbidden. She still had a bottle of her father’s painkillers hidden inside of her winter boots and the pint of vodka she had taken from the gas station two months before she got pregnant, if her parents brought it up again. Hopefully, it would not come down to that, but with parents like hers she never knew.

She wobbled and winced across the hospital parking lot in slow motion. Steady. Deliberate. She dropped the car seat down on the ground at the entrance as if the release were a signature move. Warren, who was well-padded, did not stir. The baby bag hit the ground next. When she turned to walk away, she heard loud, terrifying gasps from every man and woman who saw and wanted to make sense of what had happened. There was a boldness to the way she abandoned the infant that made other people’s brains glitch. Especially Warren’s father, who was unloading luggage for a pregnant woman and her family.

The note Willow left atop the baby explained it all-

This is Warren. Everything you need to know about him is in this book. He is healthy and in good condition. No one has hurt him. I promise. Please make sure that his new parents are supportive and encouraging. I would have kept him, but I don’t have the support that I need to care for another person. Thank you.

Warren, Mommy loves you.

Latasha DeStouet is a writer from Philadelphia and a graduate of Thomas Jefferson University. She is currently working on a comprehensive guide for young women aging out of the foster care system, based on her lived experience and wisdom. Latasha is also the creator of Invisible Dragons, a line of grieving cards designed to help people work through grief, trauma, and the pain of divorce. When she is not writing, she likes to travel and visit botanical gardens. Purchase her grieving cards at: invisibledragons.net – Invisible Dragons | Greeting Cards | Trauma Survivors and find her on Facebook and Instagram.