Lost & Found Baby

One day, my ten-year-old found a baby: a wandering toddler, wearing a skirt of torn fabric strips suspended by a string tied around her waist. Except for a Zulu man working on a car, the street was empty. He shook his head, and pointed to a hillside where, sprawled on the ground, a woman slept alongside two bottles: whiskey and baby. We left her with a bag of groceries, sitting up, sharing bits of bread with her daughter. I walked away with mine, hand-in-hand, wondering, even to this day, if we did the right thing with and for the baby. (100)