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…

final page, penned just hours before my desperate march, were instructions: Alina, the babies are coming. I am too weak. If I sleep and do not wake, put them in the wheelbarrow. Walk to the white building. Do not stop. I love you.

Morales closed the book, his jaw tight. He stepped out of the suffocating shack and looked down the miles of rust-colored continue reading …