A knock on the window made me jump.
An older man stood there in a worn coat and split boots, gray beard moving in the wind. He looked like somebody the road had kept.
I cracked the window.
He changed the tire without another question.
“You all right?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
He looked at the back of my car. “You got a spare?”
“Yes.”
“Pop the trunk.”
He changed the tire without another question. Fast. Steady. Like he had done it a thousand times.
I hadn’t told him my name.
I stood there hugging my arms and staring at his hands.
When he finished, he wiped them on a rag and looked at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen.
Then he said, very gently, “Take care now, Margaret.”
Everything in me stopped.
I hadn’t told him my name.
“What did you say?”
But he was already stepping back.
That was when I saw the Polaroid on the passenger seat.
“Wait.”
He looked at me once, like there was more he wanted to say, then turned and walked toward the trees.
I got back into my car shaking.
That was when I saw the Polaroid on the passenger seat.
A little boy in a red shirt. Hair in his eyes. Crooked front tooth.
Daniel.
He’d been promoted to mayor while I was still looking for my child.
A photo I had never seen before in my life.
On the white border was an address, and under it, in shaky handwriting, my name.
I called the old sheriff, the one who ran Daniel’s case. He’d been promoted to mayor while I was still looking for my child.
The second he saw the Polaroid on my phone, all the color left his face.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“Do you know this address?”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Margaret, listen to me carefully. Do not go there.”
“Why?”
His jaw tightened. “Because if I’m right, that place belongs to Roy’s niece.”
The name meant nothing to me.
He went on, talking faster now. “Roy worked maintenance along Route 9 back then. We questioned him during the search. He said he saw nothing. If that photo came from him and the boy in it is Daniel, then I missed something I should have seen.”
I got out holding the Polaroid so tightly it bent.
I started the car.
“Margaret, don’t do this alone,” he said. “I’m coming now.”
But I was already driving.
The house was small and ordinary. Toys in the yard. Wind chimes on the porch. A truck in the drive.
I got out holding the Polaroid so tightly it bent.
Before I could knock, the door opened.
She looked at me, then at the Polaroid in my hand.
A little boy stood in the hallway clutching a toy dinosaur.
“Grandpa?” he called behind him.
My knees nearly gave out.
Then a woman hurried in and pulled him back. “Mason, come here.”
She looked at me, then at the Polaroid in my hand.
