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. Sarah.I brought her home for Christmas Eve. I thought she was the one. Then I caught her with my best friend a week before we were supposed to get married.That was when I learned that loneliness was just another safety word.Snow drifted lightly across the asphalt, catching in the headlight beams like static. I was running late. The sun had already vanished behind the mountains.