A couple of hours later, Mike was back in the same tired little town. He pulled up to the leaning fence and called out several times, but no one answered. Peering through the cloudy window, he saw the house was empty.
“She’s probably at the market,” he said to himself, and drove back toward the roadside stands. “Morning. Do you know where I can find Ms. Ingram?” he asked the women there. “Morning,” one of them said. “She’s over there by the shoulder, maybe fifty yards down.”
Mike thanked her and drove slowly to the spot. “Hello,” he said. “Do you remember me? I bought the blue-eyed doll from you a few days ago.” “I remember,” the woman said cautiously. “Something wrong with it?”
“No, not at all. My daughter loves it. But I need to ask you about something, and I’d rather not do it out here,” Mike said, glancing at the other vendors. He took the faded pink scrap from his pocket and held it out.
The woman went white. “Can you drive me home?” she asked in a voice that had gone thin and shaky. She recognized it immediately. Mike helped load her things into the car without another word.
The whole ride back, she trembled but said nothing. Once inside, she motioned him toward the kitchen. “Sit,” she said. Then she lowered herself onto a chair across from him and kept her eyes on the table.
“Can we talk plainly?” Mike asked, setting the fabric in front of her. “Where… where did you get that?” she whispered, pressing the scrap to her lips.
“It belonged to my wife, Susan. She grew up in a children’s home. That’s where we met. She was left there as a baby, wrapped in this fabric, about thirty years ago.” Mike kept his voice even, but every word landed hard.
