"Robert," Evelyn murmured, looking toward her husband. "Help me with my coat." Naomi stepped forward automatically, and together they removed the heavy brown overcoat from Evelyn's narrow shoulders. Beneath it the woman wore a dark cardigan, an old-fashioned blouse, and a locket on a fine silver chain. Robert placed a folded blanket over her knees, then stood uncertainly near the door, as though he expected to be asked to leave. Naomi looked from one face to the other and said, "I need you to tell me exactly why you're here."
"You have every right," Robert said. He was a tall man who had once been broad through the shoulders, but age had curved him and made his dark overcoat hang loosely. "We drove from Janesville this afternoon. The roads were worse than we were told, and the last ten miles took an hour." He rubbed his hands together without noticing he was doing it. "I wanted to turn around. Evelyn wouldn't let me."
Evelyn gave a small, exhausted shake of her head. "I have turned around enough times." She looked directly at Naomi, and her voice trembled. "I am Daniel Ward's mother." The room fell quiet again, but this time Naomi's silence was not confusion. It was a rush of remembered questions, the kind she had eventually stopped asking because she could see what they cost Loretta. The woman who might have been her grandmother was sitting three feet away, years and years too late.
Naomi went into the kitchen and put the kettle on because she needed something ordinary to do with her hands. She called her ten-year-old son, Eli, upstairs and asked him to stay in his room for a little while. He was building a model airplane and agreed with the distracted confidence of a boy who assumed that all adults who came through the door were guests. Naomi returned carrying tea and two clean towels. Evelyn held the warm cup between both hands, watching Naomi with an intensity that was almost unbearable.
"Don't look at me like that," Naomi said finally. "You don't know me." Evelyn lowered her gaze. Robert shifted his weight beside the fireplace, but he did not interrupt. Naomi sat opposite them, keeping the space between their chairs clear. "My mother lived in this house for twenty-six years. Her number was in the phone book before the world stopped using phone books. If you wanted to find her, you could have."
"Yes," Evelyn said. The word was soft, but she did not try to hide behind it. "I could have." Naomi had expected a story about lost addresses or messages that never arrived, perhaps a claim that someone else had kept them apart. Instead Evelyn's admission landed like a stone dropped into still water. She lifted the locket from her chest and held it out, though she did not yet open it. "There's something you need to see."
The locket was old silver with a narrow ridged edge and a tiny crown-shaped catch at the top. Its surface had been polished smooth in places by years of fingers rubbing over it. Naomi could see the reflection of the lamp in its curved face and the faint tremor of Evelyn's knuckles. When the catch clicked open, a black-and-white portrait appeared inside: a young man with dark hair, serious eyes, and the beginning of a smile. Naomi leaned forward before she could stop herself, because she had seen that face almost every day of her childhood.