**BABY ON THE PLATFORM: 25 YEARS LATER, THE PAST KNOCKS**
I found a baby by the railway tracks and raised her as my owntwenty-five years later, her past came calling.
“Wait what was that?”
I stopped mid-step on my way to the station, a faint sound cutting through the silence. The bitter February wind tugged at my coat, stinging my cheeks, carrying with it a tiny, persistent whimperalmost drowned by the storms howl.
The noise came from the tracks. I turned toward the old signal box, half-buried under snow. Beside the rails lay a dark bundle.
Cautiously, I edged closer. A frayed, grubby blanket covered a tiny figure. A small hand poked outchapped red with cold.
“My God,” I breathed, heart pounding.
I knelt and lifted her. A baby. A little girl. No older than a year, perhaps younger. Her lips were blue. Her cries weak, as if she barely had the strength to be afraid.
I pressed her to my chest, opened my coat to shield her, and ranfast as I couldto the village. To Eleanor Whitmore, our only medic.
“Margaret, what on earth?” Eleanor saw the bundle in my arms and gasped.
“I found her by the tracks. She was nearly frozen.”
Eleanor took the baby gently, checking her over. “She’s hypothermic but alive. Thank heavens.”
“We must call the police,” she added, reaching for the phone.
I stopped her. “Theyll send her to an orphanage. She wont survive the journey.”
Eleanor hesitated, then opened a cupboard. “Here. Ive still got formula from my granddaughters last visit. Itll do for now. But Margaret what are you planning?”
I looked down at the tiny face nuzzling into my jumper, her breath warm on my skin. Shed stopped crying.
“Ill raise her,” I said quietly. “Theres no other way.”
The whispers started almost at once.
“Shes thirty-five, unmarried, lives aloneand now shes collecting abandoned babies?”
Let them talk. Gossip never bothered me. With help from friends at the council, I sorted the paperwork. No relatives. No missing child reported.
I named her Evelyn.
The first year was the hardest. Sleepless nights. Fevers. Teething. I rocked her, soothed her, sang lullabies I barely remembered from my own childhood.
“Mummy!” she said one morning at ten months, reaching for me.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. After years of solitudejust me and my little cottageI was someones mother.
By two, she was a whirlwind. Chasing the cat. Tugging curtains. Asking endless questions. By three, she knew every letter in her picture books. By four, she spun whole stories.
“Shes gifted,” my neighbour Agnes said, shaking her head in awe. “I dont know how you do it.”
“Its not me,” I smiled. “She just shines.”
At five, I arranged lifts to get her to the nursery in the next village. The teachers were stunned.
“She reads better than most seven-year-olds,” they told me.
When she started school, she wore long chestnut plaits with matching ribbons. I braided them perfectly every morning. No parents evening went without me. Her teachers praised her endlessly.
“Mrs. Hartley,” one teacher said, “Evelyn is the sort of pupil we dream of. Shell go far.”
My heart swelled with pride. My daughter.
She grew into a graceful, striking young woman. Slender, confident, with bright blue eyes full of determination. She won spelling bees, maths contests, even regional science fairs. Everyone in the village knew her name.
Then, one evening in Year Ten, she came home and said, “Mum, I want to be a doctor.”
I blinked. “Thats wonderful, love. But how will we afford uni? The city? Rent? Food?”
“Ill get a scholarship,” she said, eyes gleaming. “Ill make it work. Promise.”
And she did.
When her medical school acceptance arrived, I cried for two days. Tears of joy and fear. She was leaving me for the first time.
“Dont cry, Mum,” she said at the station, squeezing my hand. “Ill visit every weekend.”
Of course, she didnt. The city swallowed her. Lectures, labs, exams. At first, she came monthly. Then every few. But she called every evening without fail.
“Mum! I aced anatomy!”
“Mum! We delivered a baby in clinical rotation today!”
Each time, I smiled and listened.
In her third year, her voice turned shy.
“Ive met someone,” she confessed.
His name was Thomas. A fellow student. He visited at Christmastall, polite, with kind eyes and a quiet voice. He thanked me for supper and cleared the table without being asked.
“Good catch,” I whispered to Evelyn while washing up.
“I know, right?” she beamed. “And dont worryIve still got top marks.”
After graduation, she began her paediatric training. Naturally.
“You saved me once,” she said. “Now Ill save other children.”
She visited less. I understood. She had her own life. But I kept every photo, every little patient story.
Then, one Thursday evening, my phone rang.
“Mum can I come tomorrow?” Her voice was small. Nervous. “I need to talk.”
My heart thudded. “Of course, love. Is everything alright?”
The next afternoon, she arrived alone. No smile. No sparkle in her eyes.
“Whats wrong?” I asked, pulling her into a hug.
She sat, hands folded. “Two people came to the hospital. A man and a woman. They asked for me.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“They said they were my uncle and aunt. That their niece vanished twenty-five years ago.”
My head spun. “And?”
“They had photos. DNA tests. Everything. Its true.”
Silence stretched between us.
“They abandoned you,” I whispered. “Left you in the snow.”
“They say they didnt. That my parents fled violence. That we got separated at the station. That they searched for years.”
My breath caught. “And your parents?”
“Dead. A car crash ten years ago.”
I didnt know what to say.
Evelyn gripped my hand. “They dont want anything from me. Just to tell the truth.”
I held her hand tight and whispered, “No matter what the past says, youll always be my daughter.”
