Free Cradle and All by M. J. Rodgers

grow between them as she gazed out the window.
    White pines and spruce, thick with age, lined the road. They were majestic in their grandeur, silent sentries to thousands of sunrises. Beneath their dense canopy of green, the forest floor was covered in a white sheet of frost.
    Birds flittered in and out of the branches. Soon they’d be building nests. This was Anne’s favorite time of year in the Berkshires—when new life boldly asserted itself, transforming the bareness of winter into the vibrant green and gold of spring.
    She wasn’t looking for it. Which was why when she saw it, she wasn’t sure she had.
    Anne came forward in her seat. “Stop!”
    Tom’s reflexes were instantaneous. The car came to a halt before Anne had time to take another breath.
    He turned to face her. “What is it?”
    “Back there. Between the trees. I saw a flash of something red.”
    Tom slowly backed up the car, following Anne’s pointing hand. She peered out the window, waiting once again to glimpse that flash of red. But when they reached the spot where she thought she had seen it, there was nothing there.
    She shook her head. “I could have sworn...”
    Tom shifted the car into neutral and set the brake. “Wait here,” he said as he slipped out of the driver’s seat.
    She watched as he walked over to the edge of the road. He peered into the thick underbrush, then dropped to his knees. A minute later he got up, walked a few paces down the road, then squatted again to survey the terrain.
    He was trying to approximate the height range of her vision out of the passenger window, she realized. When he suddenly stiffened, she knew he had seen it. Without hesitation, he started down the steep slope.
    Anne was out of the car in a flash.
    By the time she had reached the spot where Tom had gone over the side, he was already pushing through the frosty underbrush in the deep gully below. She made a mental note to add mountain goat to Tom’s growing list of talents.
    Anne was freezing in the icy air, but she stood rooted to her spot on the road. About fifty feet in, Tom came to a stop and started clearing away fallen branches and debris. A moment later the fender of a rusty-red VW Beetle came into view.
    Red Sox Rule, its bumper sticker read.
    The vehicle was on its side. It took several minutes for Tom to clear away enough of the thick underbrush to be able to pry open the driver’s door.
    When he leaned inside, Anne held her breath. A moment later he straightened, drew out a cross from his pocket and bowed his head in prayer.
    The breath in Anne’s chest came out in a deep, sad sigh.
    Up the road, inside the Porsche, a motherless baby began to cry.

CHAPTER FOUR
    A NNE STOOD NEXT to State Trooper Frederica Ferguson, watching the other state troopers and Tom climb up the steep gully, carrying the draped stretcher.
    It was almost dusk, and the tall trees blocked out the last of the light like the closing lid of a coffin. A wind had come up and was whistling down the open road.
    Frederica took off her parka and draped it around Anne’s shoulders. “Why don’t you wait in my car? Heater’s on.”
    Anne shook her head. Tommy was wrapped in a blanket nestled next to her heart, sleeping soundly, warm and secure. “We’re fine, Fred.”
    Her friend nodded. Frederica seemed personally oblivious to the cold. At six-three and weighing in at two hundred twelve pounds, Fred was the epitome of an Amazon woman. Next to her, Anne always felt like she was standing in a hole. But Anne knew that despite Fred’s size and sometimes gruff manner, she had a gentle heart.
    Anne had first met State Trooper Frederica Ferguson three years before, when Fred had offered to drive Anne through a heavy snowstorm to a fund-raiser. On the way to the benefit, a doe had dashed out in front of Fred’s patrol car. She hadn’t been able to brake in time.
    Fred had gotten out of the car, knelt down in the snow and held the doe in her arms until it died. Then Anne had