Jack stopped reading.
The room tilted.
St. Agnes.
He looked at Sarah.
She was crying now.
“I worked there,” she whispered.
“No.”
“Jack—”
“No.”
“I knew a girl named Louise.”
The word struck him harder than anything before.
“How old?”
“Eleven now.”
His face crumpled.
Sarah continued through tears.
“Golden hair. Blue eyes.”
Jack backed against the wall.
“No.”
“She barely remembered anything from before the fever.”
“No.”
“She remembered horses.”
Jack covered his ears.
“She remembered her father carving things from wood.”
“Stop.”
“She remembered a song about the moon.”
Jack’s hands dropped.
“What?”
Sarah froze.
Jack stared.
“What song?”
Sarah sang softly.
“Little moon above the hill, shine upon my darling still…”
Jack’s legs gave way.
He hit the floor.
Mary had invented that lullaby.
There were no records of it.
No books.
No hymnals.
Mary had sung it to Lucy every night.
Jack whispered the final line.
“Bring her dreams and keep her near, till morning tells her Papa’s here.”
Sarah sobbed.
Jack buried his face in his hands.
For six years he had lived inside a grave.
And somewhere in Wyoming—
his daughter might have been alive.
He wanted to ride immediately.
Sarah physically blocked the door.
“You’ll die before reaching the road.”
“I’m going.”
“There’s a blizzard!”
“My daughter is there!”
“And she has waited six years. She needs you alive tomorrow.”
Jack seized his coat.
Sarah grabbed his wrist.
“Think about Lucy!”
He looked at her with such agony that she nearly released him.
“If this is wrong…”
“I know.”
“If she isn’t…”
“I know.”
“If I believe this and lose her again—”
Sarah stepped closer.
“You won’t survive it.”
Jack shook his head.
“No.”
“Then don’t believe yet.”
She took his hand.
“Just hope.”
Jack looked toward sleeping Gracie.
Hope.
He had forgotten how terrifying it was.
The storm broke shortly before dawn.
Christmas morning arrived beneath a world remade in white.
Jack harnessed his strongest team before sunrise.
Sarah bundled Gracie beneath blankets.
The road to Cheyenne was dangerous, but Jack barely felt the cold.
They traveled for hours.
At one point a drift swallowed half the sleigh.
Jack dug until his fingers bled.
Sarah pushed.
They continued.
By late afternoon, bells from St. Agnes chapel reached them through the frozen air.
Jack stopped breathing.
The children’s home stood beyond a grove of bare cottonwoods.
Brick walls.
White roof.
A cross over the entrance.
Jack could not move.
Sarah placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You came this far.”
He climbed down.
A gray-haired nun opened the door.
“Sister Catherine,” Sarah said.
Recognition brightened the woman’s face.
“Sarah?”
Then she saw Jack.
Something in her expression changed.
Sarah handed her Matthew’s letter.
Sister Catherine read silently.
Her hand rose to her mouth.
“Oh, dear God.”
Jack’s voice sounded foreign.
“Is she here?”
The woman looked at him.
“Louise?”
“Lucy.”
Tears appeared in her eyes.
“Yes.”
Jack gripped the doorway.
“Where?”
The nun glanced toward a long corridor.
“She’s in the chapel rehearsing with the younger children.”
