After she left, I didn’t chase her. That’s the part that’s hard to type. She texted me twice that first week. The first one said, “Mom I have nowhere to go.” I didn’t answer. The second one said, “Please just call me.” I deleted it.

I told myself she’d come crawling back and apologize and we’d deal with it then. She never called again. Nine years, not once. I told everyone she was the one who cut me off.

So Tuesday night, I’m holding her file. My hands are doing this weird shaky thing. Intake date, March 14, 2018. That was three months after I put her out. Three months. I always pictured her landing somewhere soft. A friend’s couch. The baby’s father’s family, whoever he was. I never once pictured her here, in a place exactly like the one I fold towels in to feel good about myself.

I kept reading. Seventeen weeks pregnant when she walked in. Then there was a note further down, in a different pen. It said she gave birth in the shelter bathroom. In the bathroom. Because she couldn’t cover the ER copay and was scared they’d turn her away. My grandchild was born on a tile floor while I was probably home arguing with Dale about what restaurant to go to.

Then I got to the form she filled out herself. I knew her handwriting the second I saw it. She always made her R’s funny, with a little loop. Under Emergency Contact she wrote one word. None. Under Family Support, same thing. None. I read those two Nones about ten times. My whole body just kind of stopped working for a second.

And then there was the last box. Reason for Seeking Shelter. Most people put a few words.

Megan wrote out a whole sentence, and that’s when my legs went and I sat down right there on the supply room floor with the towels still in my lap.

She wrote: “My mother found out I was pregnant and told me to figure it out. I tried to tell her that the father was her husband.”