Melissa nodded and held out her arms. It felt like an eternity since she’d first held him, and now he was wrapped tightly in a small blanket. She cradled him close and studied his face as the nurse stepped out of the room.

He looked straight at her and she thought her heart would melt. She kissed his forehead and closed her eyes and smelled his hair and newborn skin.

“Hi,” she whispered, touching his nose. “I’ve been waiting a long time to see you.”

His mouth puckered and she laughed, tears coming. He was absolutely perfect. A miracle. As she studied his little chin, she thought of a Bible verse Jennifer had shared with her. It said, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” And that was exactly what had happened.

“What’s your name going to be, little guy?” she whispered. “I wish I could pick it out, but I don’t think that would be fair. Your new mom and dad will do that.”

Melissa closed her eyes and tried to catalog this feeling. What was it? The baby seemed so content. Maybe that was it—she was just as content here holding him as he was being held. She looked at the ceiling and wondered if somehow she was being held, being given the strength of an embrace just like her baby.

“Do you want to see out the window?” she whispered.

She got out of bed and stepped to the window. The soft December sunlight peeked through the closed blinds and she stroked the baby’s head as he closed his eyes and slept peacefully.

How in the world was she going to do this? How could she just hand over something this precious, this piece of her heart, to someone she had never met? She looked in the corner at her gym bag and the thought crossed her mind to get dressed, slip down the back stairs, and walk out the door. Everything in her wanted to take this little one home.

They had been driving at least eight hours when Susan saw the sign that made her heart flutter.

Welcome to Indiana. Crossroads of America. Lincoln’s Boyhood Home.

“How about that for a name?” Jimmy said. “Lincoln Colton?”

She rolled it around in her mind, not knowing if Jimmy was serious. “I don’t know. It sounds like a lot of pressure when he’s in the third grade,” she said. “‘Can you live up to the name, Lincoln?’”

“Yeah, that would be tough. What about Buck?”

“Jimmy, come on.”

“No, think of it. First Christmas he’d get cowboy boots and the next a Stetson and then six-shooters with holsters.”

“We’re not naming our son Buck.”

“Maybe that’s his middle name?”

“Stop it.”

Jimmy smiled. “If he becomes a country music star in twenty years, you remember this idea.”