Most people never really see janitors.
Not the men rushing past in tailored suits, eyes glued to their phones.
Not the women clicking across polished floors with coffee in one hand and earbuds in the other.
And certainly not the teenagers who toss paper towels onto the ground as if the floor will magically clean itself.
I stopped expecting to be seen a long time ago.
My name is Martha. I’m sixty-three years old, and for more than forty years, I’ve worked nights—quiet hours spent scrubbing bathrooms, wiping fingerprints off mirrors, and mopping floors under flickering fluorescent lights. Office buildings. Highway rest stops. Places people pass through without a second thought.
Some folks say that kind of life is lonely.
I never argued with them.
But I never agreed either.
Because honest work has its own dignity. And when the world finally sleeps, the silence gives you room to breathe.
Still… when you give your body, your time, and your youth to raise children, you secretly hope for small things. A visit. A phone call. A birthday card with crooked handwriting from a grandchild.
Mine stopped coming.
I have three children—Diana, Carly, and Ben. All grown. All successful. College diplomas framed on walls I’ve never stood in front of. They have partners, children of their own, kitchens with stone counters, and refrigerators that hold more wine than food.
And me?
I’m the chapter they quietly closed.
Holidays come and go like wind through an empty street. Every year, the excuses change, but the outcome never does.
“Flights are too expensive right now, Mom.”
“The kids have programs.”
“We’re spending Christmas with the in-laws this time.”
“Maybe next year.”
Next year never arrives.
So I keep working. I keep cleaning the world they live in, even if they’ve forgotten the woman who helped build it.
That’s why I was at the interstate rest stop that early Tuesday morning—alone, halfway through my shift, pushing a mop across cold tile while the sky outside was still black.
That’s when I heard it.
At first, it sounded like nothing. A soft, broken noise. Almost like a stray kitten.
I stopped breathing.
Then it came again—clearer this time. A thin, desperate cry that didn’t belong in an empty bathroom.
I dropped the mop and followed the sound.
It led me behind the second trash bin—the one that always overflowed first. I knelt down, heart pounding, and pulled the bin aside.
And there he was.
A newborn boy.
Tiny. Shaking. Wrapped in a dirty, threadbare blanket, tucked between torn paper towels and empty snack wrappers. Someone had placed a faded navy hoodie beneath him, as if that small mercy could make up for everything else.
He was alive.
Barely.
I gathered him into my arms without thinking, pressing him against my chest like instinct remembered something my mind hadn’t caught up to yet.
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