At the clinic gate, a 7-year-old collapsed, crying, “Mommy has been sleeping for three days, please save them.” The doctor rushed to help the newborn twins, but as he lifted them, his hands shook. Underneath the babies was a handwritten note from the mother that made the doctor freeze in terror…

the threshold, out of the shadows, and into the blinding, merciless glare of the midday sun. I looked down the winding, rust-colored dirt road that stretched for miles into the shimmering horizon. It looked like the mouth of an oven.

I pushed. The wheel shrieked. And as I reached the edge of our property, a sound from the house stopped me cold—a sudden,continue reading …