Walter looked at his hands.
“I should have done more.”
Evelyn turned toward him.
“Walter.”
“I should have fought harder when they first said we couldn't take her. I should have found a lawyer. I should have—”
“You were working two jobs while I was in the hospital every other week. You were trying to keep our home. You were trying to keep Emily's bills from burying us. You did everything you could.”
“Not enough.”
She took his hand.
“No,” she said gently. “Not enough to save Emily. Not enough to keep Rosie with us. But that doesn't mean you didn't do everything you could.”
Walter closed his eyes.
For months, he had been unable to separate his grief from his guilt. Every memory of Emily seemed to end with a decision he wished he had made differently. Every memory of Rosie seemed to become a question about whether he had failed her.
He had not told Evelyn that he sometimes woke in the middle of the night convinced he could hear Rosie crying in the apartment they no longer had.
He had not told her that he sometimes imagined the little girl sitting at their old kitchen table, waiting for him to return from work with a paper bag of warm pastries.
He had not told her that, on the worst mornings, he had begun to wonder whether the world would notice if he simply stopped getting out of bed.
He had kept going because Evelyn needed him.
And because Rosie might still need him, too.
Evelyn leaned against his shoulder.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered, “we'll find out what happens next.”
Walter nodded.
Outside, snow began falling again.
Across town, Vincent Maddox sat alone in a darkened clubhouse office, staring at a photograph he had taken from his wallet.
The picture was old and slightly faded.
A young woman with dark hair stood beside a teenage boy in a cheap leather jacket. Her arm was around his shoulders, and she was laughing at something outside the frame.
Vincent had been seventeen when the picture was taken.
The woman was his mother, Margaret Maddox.
She had died before his twenty-first birthday, after a long illness that consumed the family's savings and left Vincent with more anger than he knew how to carry.
He had spent years blaming the world for what happened to her.
He had blamed doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and anyone who had ever told him there was nothing more to be done.
Then he had blamed himself.
He had been too young to understand that love could not always save someone.
He had been old enough to understand that losing someone could change the shape of a life forever.
When his mother died, Vincent had left home and ridden west with a motorcycle, a duffel bag, and a promise to himself that he would never again let anyone see him helpless.
The promise had lasted almost four decades.
Now an old man with shaking hands had sat at his table and asked whether he could eat his leftovers.
Vincent opened the desk drawer.
Inside lay a small wooden toy truck, its paint chipped and one wheel missing. He had kept it for years without knowing why he could not throw it away.
It had belonged to his younger brother, Daniel.
Daniel had died at nine years old, three years before their mother.
A winter storm had trapped their family on a rural road. Their car slid into a ditch, and Daniel was injured. By the time help arrived, he had lost too much blood.
Vincent remembered sitting in the back of the ambulance, holding his brother's hand and promising that everything would be all right.
Daniel had believed him.
That was the memory Vincent could never forgive himself for.
He closed the drawer.
A knock sounded at the office door.
Hector stepped inside, carrying two cups of coffee.
“I found a lawyer,” he said. “Name's Margaret Collins. Family law, child welfare, grandparents' rights. Twenty years in practice. She has a reputation for being stubborn.”
“Good.”
“She can meet us at nine.”
“Tell her we'll be there.”
Hector placed a cup on the desk.
“You haven't answered my question.”
Vincent looked up.
“Which one?”
“Why this family?”
Vincent glanced at the photograph of his mother.
For a moment, he considered telling Hector the truth.
Instead, he looked toward the dark window.
“Because somebody should have helped them before they reached my table.”
Hector studied him.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
He started toward the door but stopped before leaving.
“One more thing. I asked around. The Harpers have been staying at a cheap boardinghouse on the east side for the last few weeks. Before that, they were sleeping in their Buick whenever they could.”
Vincent's fingers tightened around the coffee cup.
“How long?”
“About a month.”
“And the social worker knows?”
“Apparently.”
Vincent looked at him.
Hector's face hardened.
“Yeah,” he said. “I thought you'd want to know.”
Vincent said nothing.
But when Hector left, he remained at the desk for a long time.
Outside, the wind pushed snow against the clubhouse windows.
Somewhere in Billings, a seven-year-old girl was sleeping in a stranger's house, perhaps believing her grandparents had abandoned her.
And somewhere across the city, an elderly couple was trying to survive another night without knowing whether they would ever see her again.
Vincent Maddox had spent his life believing that some losses could not be repaired.
By morning, he intended to find out whether this was one of them.
Margaret Collins arrived at the diner at eight fifty-seven the following morning.