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“Let me put it this way then,” he replied. “As far as I knew, Leigh never married or had any children. But this picture… It looks like the baby is hers, right? I’m not just overreacting here, am I?”

“I don’t know if you’re overreacting, but I will say that in the short time I’ve known you, you haven’t been the type to overreact. Let me see that again.”

She took the photo from him and tapped the edge with her finger.

“Okay, maybe this isn’t what we’re thinking. Maybe she was in the hospital for some procedure, and a few friends stopped to visit, and she held their new baby. A simple explanation.”

“Sure, that could be it. Although,” he hesitated for a moment before he continued. “Why on earth would anyone bring a newborn to a hospital with all its germs? I wouldn’t do that.”

“Maybe they couldn’t get a sitter,” she suggested. “Not everyone can. And to be fair, there are a lot of newborns in hospitals after being born. Germs or not.”

“That doesn’t look like the local hospital,” Sam said, looking at every detail he could find. “I don’t think that’s Winslow Heights Memorial.”

“From the clothes, this looks like this was taken a good thirty years ago or more. The hospital might have changed. This could also be a different hospital. Didn’t you say that Leigh went to Boston twice a year? Maybe she had something done there. She could have ended up in the emergency room with a broken ankle or something.”

He would have been far too young to know if that had happened.

“Your explanation sounds reasonable,” he finally said. “I think I’m letting this all get to me. I’m looking for skeletons in all the closets.”

“From what you’ve told me, you have good reason to be that way. Whatever she was in the hospital for, it isn’t any of our business, and it clearly didn’t affect her life later.”

“True,” he conceded. “How about we gather any photos we find this morning and place them all in one box. That should make it easy for her family.”

“Sounds like a good plan. Do you want me to help you with these books?”

“No, keep doing what you’re doing. Divide and conquer.”

Three large bookshelves lined Leigh’s bedroom, so Sam was still boxing them up as Alli moved through the dresser. When she was finally to the last drawer at the bottom, she pulled out a shoebox and held it up for him to see.

“Why did she keep this pair of shoes in her dresser?” Alli asked. “All of her other shoes are in the closet.”

In true Leigh style, all of her shoes were lined up on special racks designed just for that purpose. From his cursory glance through the closet, he had already noticed that her clothes were organized by color. He’d made a remark that he thought that was strange, but Alli had said she did the same thing, so maybe he was missing out on something. But to be fair, most of his clothes were for work, which meant blue suits with either a white or a blue shirt. There wasn’t much to be organized there.

Alli opened the box and stared into the contents.

“These aren’t shoes.”

“What is it then?” he asked as he placed the last book into a box.

The book club members were going to make out like bandits from this haul. Depending on the number of members, they wouldn’t have to buy a book for a long time.

Unless they’ve already read these, too.

“Take a look,” she said, handing him the box.

Inside was tissue paper, gone yellow and brittle. A pair of pink knitted booties, almost doll-sized. A plastic hospital bracelet, the kind they cut off and hand to you, sized for an ankle the width of Sam’s thumb. An envelope, soft with handling, holding a curl of fine dark hair.

A larger envelope, the papers haphazardly stuffed inside. Pulling them out, he found a multi-page hospital bill, for a hospital in Boston, dated July of 1996. There were also post-partum instructions for the new mother, along with a perfect set of baby footprints on a piece of cardstock with a pink bow attached to the corner.

“I guess the photo wasn’t just someone visiting with their baby,” Alli said. “Leigh had a baby about thirty years ago.”

“There’s no way that’s possible,” Sam replied reflexively, not that he would have remembered.

He’d been a baby, barely a year old. He certainly hadn’t been cognizant of whether his father’s assistant was having a baby.

“Are you sure? Because if the baby wasn’t hers, then all of this is really creepy.”

“Leigh wasn’t creepy.”