Chapter 1.
Maria Colton's birth into the world was not a happy one. Her mother, a pretty redhead at the ripe age of twenty-four, had stumbled into an off-duty policeman who was on his way home from a days work. She had grabbed his shoulder, and whispered a barely audible, "help me," before collapsing in the middle of the busy Irish street. The man, newly married himself, and unable to leave a woman helplessly lying on the street, picked her up and carried her to the nearest hospital, where the doctors saw her immediately. After a quick call to his wife the policeman anxiously paced in the clean, unfeeling waiting room of the emergency department.
A medical man walked out. He was short and balding, with blue surgeons scrubs. The police officer looked up hopefully, but dropped it at the sorrowful sigh.
"She's lost too much blood," the doctor said, "will be lucky to survive the C-section we had to perform."
"C-section?" The policeman inquired.
"Yes, the child may still survive."
"Child?" The policeman asked stupidly. It wasn't that he was not an intelligent man, but he didn't know what he was to do about the child, should it live.
"You may see the mother if you wish," the doctor informed him. The policeman slowly walked into the hospital bed where the pretty woman lay, her breathing shallow, her once pretty face marred in pain. She smiled weakly at the man who entered the room.
"Name her Maria," she had gasped, "Maria Colton." The words only just left her lips when she passed and the child had started to cry as if she knew what had happened. The policeman took one look at the dead woman before leaving the room.