“Oh God,” Drew whispered, leaning nearer the photo.
Taylor was smiling in the picture, crouched beside the car near the car seat in that very driveway Willow just walked, while someone else took the shot.
“That’s heartbreaking,” Drew said. “Wait, is he wearing a bracelet?”
One pudgy baby hand had extricated itself from the woven receiving blanket in which the baby was swaddled, as if reaching for the camera. Wrapped around his wrist was that leather bracelet, lined in beads, white with blue around the edges, and the name “WOLF” spelled out in turquoise and carnelian. The letter O was a moonstone with an intricately carved wolf’s head in its face.
Drew pulled out her phone and took a photo of the printed photograph. “A scan would be better, but later. This is good for now.”
“The bracelet’s native-made,” Willow said. “A gift from a shaman, Mom said.”
“The blanket’s Native too, and distinctive,” Drew added.
“We found the blanket,” said a deep voice. Willow’s dad had come in and stood in the open door of the guest cottage. “It was tangled on some branches in a stretch of rough current, way downriver.”
“But no baby,” Willow whispered.
Wes shook his head, slow and sad. “Rangers said wildlife prob’ly…” He closed his eyes, shuddered.
Drew whispered, “Where, Uncle Wes? Where,exactly, was the blanket found?”
The way his eyes looked when he opened them compelled Willow to add, “We want to do a ceremony for him. Just us cousins.”
Wes’s eyes focused on hers, and she knew he was looking for the lie. She held his gaze, defiant. He couldn’t stop her from trying to find out what had happened to her brother. She wouldn’t let him stop her. Her mom didn’t have to know.
They were locked that way, in ocular combat, until Wes sighed and said, “It’s right at the border of Big Bend. Rapids after that. Even if he made it that far, there’s no way he could’ve…” Again, he let his words trail off. “A ceremony’ll be good for you, I guess. Maybe you need it. Just…don’t mention it to your mother.”
“Is she okay?”
Wes nodded. “She’s stronger now than she was back then. Hell, that experience is probably whatmadeher stronger once she…came back to herself.” He met Willow’s eyes and his were bleak. “For a while I wasn’t sure she would. I thought I’d lostthe both of ’em.” He reached out and pushed Willow’s long, dark hair behind one ear. “You’re so much like her. You healed us when you came along. As much as we could be healed. You’re our miracle. Never doubt it.”
“Oh, Dad.” She rose and hugged him and he hugged her back.
“If you have questions, you can ask me. I’m not mad at you. You have a right to know about your brother.”
She pressed her lips and nodded against his shoulder. “Thanks, Dad.”
“The thing is, uh, if you do go diggin’, there won’t be much to find.”
“What do you mean?” Drew was the one who asked.
Willow was too busy trying to put it together in her mind.
“Your mom was falling apart. The flood took her baby right out of her arms and that was just too good a story. If it’d hit the papers or the townsfolk had known—she couldn’t have handled that. So we kept it quiet.”
“That’s what Uncle Garrett said,” she murmured.
“Garrett being Sheriff helped. He could have every resource out there looking for him without it being front-page news. We told folks he’d passed, and that was all. Most assumed SIDS, and we let ’em.”
“But, Dad, couldn’t the press have helped?” Willow asked, the breaks in her words echoing those in her heart. “What if someone found him or something?”
He lowered his head. “You don’t know how much we prayed for that. And Garret left no stone unturned. But once we found the blanket, we knew.” When he raised his head again, his eyes were wet. “You’ll see.”
Camellia
Camellia left the public library, jogging down the steps to the sidewalk, taking out her favorite hair pin on the way. It was six inches long and made of jade. She’d been nine years old and on a family vacation, seeing the sights in San Francisco with her mom and dad. She’d spotted a whale on that trip and seals basking in the ocean. They’d stopped at a souvenir shop in Chinatown.
Camellia’s hair had been long her entire life, way beyond her shoulders. She loved her hair and rarely cut it. But it had been hot that day, and she remembered wishing she’d brought a scrunchy to put her hair up.
