Chapter 1: On The Road - Chapter 1
Three years now, Jennifer Smith had been traveling home by bus for the Christmas holidays. Everybody in her family thought she was crazy to put herself through the emotions this trip had been caussheng her. Her father had offered to buy her plane ticket which she refused. For her, it wasn't about money.
It was her way of honouring her sweet child who was no longer with her. Making the journey this way always settled the turbulent sea of her soul and made her feel closer to her dead child in a way that no other means of transportation could.
Some said it was morbid to retrace the route to my hometown in the Rockies, to travel the same roads she'd traveled with baby inside of her. But she relished the trip as a way of renewing my wavering belief that the choice she'd made was the right one.
In the middle of her sophomore year at a small Midwestern college, she wasn't the right person to give her the best in life. Although she was sure of her love for her, she knew she couldn't provide the baby with a stable life. So she'd returned to the sanctuary of my parents' home for the last six weeks of my pregnancy. . . .
Suddenly, the bus rattled through a pothole, and she was jostled from her reverie, taking a look outside. The afternoon sun shone weakly through low gray clouds that threatened snow before the night was over. The prairie grass was brown and matted, lying low as if hugging the ground for warmth.
The traffic alongside the bus had increased, which meant they were approaching another town. The repetition of short stops and cookie-cutter bus stations was soothing. She liked knowing that not too many miles farther along the road would be a well-lit, warm room where I could stretch my legs and buy a cup of cocoa.
Bus travel was as anonymous as I wanted it to be. Jennifer made the decision to either talk with her fellow passengers, or maintain my distance. On this particular trip, she was thankful that the bus wasn't too crowded, and for several hours, she enjoyed a whole seat to myself. Mostly, she was just glad that the other travelers were also going solo—military personnel, college students, and seniors—not families.
Christmas was always the hardest time of year for her. Seeing happy families enjoying each other chipped away at her belief that she'd done the right thing. She worried that her adoptive parents couldn't possibly love her as much as she did. That year, her baby would be almost two. To save her sanity, she'd been having to pretend that toddlers were invisible. At shopping malls, Jennifer kept her eyes straight ahead, not daring to let her gaze dip down to the huge eyes, rounded cheeks, and dimpled smiles beaming up at her from strollers and carriages everywhere.
After another short stop, at which she got off the bus momentarily to take advantage of the station's rest rooms, my bus's departure was announced over the intercom, and she hurried back aboard. The bus creaked and moaned as it waddled away from the station. One more city left behind them She thought.
Settling into her seat once again, she concentrated on the passing scenery through the window. Ten minutes passed in pleasant viewing before she heard the baby's first cry.
Someone with a small child must've boarded at the last city. Whenever she heard a baby's cry, her whole body went on alert, fighting her natural impulse to get close to that sound. The fussing sounds spun her thoughts back to the reason for her trek.
Three years before, she'd hoped for a quiet holiday spent in the loving atmosphere of family in hee childhood home. Her baby had had different ideas.
Content with the last-minute excitement of holiday baking and gift wrapping, she'd ignored the first labor twinges and promised herself that she'd put her feet up as soon as the next batch of cookies was done. But before she realized what was happening, Mama had taken one look at Jennifer's hand bracing her lower back, bundled me into the car, and driven me to the local hospital. She'd stayed right by Jennifer's side, whispering words of encouragement and telling her how proud she was of her.she'd clung to her words as tightly as I'd clung to her hand.
Not prepared for how the act of giving birth would touch her soul's most primal depths, Jennifer had started wishing that she could keep the baby, that she'd find a way to make a life for them. But Mama brought her back to reality. From then on, she'd tried to believe that letting her baby be adopted was truly the best choice—for both of them.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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