Sarah stood abruptly.

“I should check Gracie.”

“Sarah.”

She gathered the cups.

“Not tonight, Jack.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Her face tightened.

For several seconds, Jack thought she might answer.

Then Gracie stirred.

Sarah turned away.

“Please.”

Jack let her go.

But the uneasiness remained.

Later, after Sarah and Gracie went upstairs, Jack opened the cedar chest beneath his bed.

Inside lay everything he could not throw away.

Mary’s wedding ring.

A lock of Lucy’s golden hair tied with blue ribbon.

A photograph of the three of them taken outside the barn.

And beneath those things, another photograph.

Older.

Faded.

Jack had nearly forgotten it existed.

He picked it up.

A boy of nineteen stood beside a girl of seventeen.

Jack and Mary.

Newly married.

Terrified of the future.

Wildly in love.

Mary was pregnant in the photograph.

Not with Lucy.

With their first child.

Jack closed his eyes.

Jacob Michael Callahan had been born on December twenty-third, twenty-four years earlier.

He had lived less than an hour.

At least, that was what they had been told.

A blizzard had trapped Jack miles from home while he went for the doctor. By the time he returned, the baby was gone.

The midwife, Abigail Rusk, said he had been born weak.

Mary had nearly bled to death.

There had been no proper funeral.

The ground was frozen, and Abigail claimed she had arranged for the tiny body to be placed temporarily in the church crypt until spring.

Jack had been nineteen.

Broken.

Mary had been unconscious for nearly two days.

By spring, the church had suffered a fire.

Records were lost.

Several coffins stored below had been damaged.

They buried a small sealed box beneath a stone bearing their son’s name.

For years afterward, Mary sometimes woke crying.

She always asked the same question.

“Did you ever see him?”

Jack always told her no.

Neither had she.

They had survived because eventually Lucy came.

Lucy, with her golden hair and blue eyes.

Lucy, who filled every empty room.

Jack placed the photograph back in the chest.

Why had he thought of Jacob tonight?

He did not know.

Then he noticed something.

Mary’s wedding ring had rolled against an envelope he had never seen.

Jack frowned.

He lifted it.

The envelope was yellow with age.

On the front, in Mary’s handwriting, were three words.

FOR JACK. SOMEDAY.

His pulse quickened.

He opened it.

Inside was a single folded page.

He read the first line.

Then stopped.

Jack, I have carried a suspicion for years, and I pray I am wrong.

His hands began to tremble.

Three years after Lucy was born, I saw Abigail Rusk in Cheyenne.

Jack sat down.

She ran from me.

His heartbeat became louder.

I followed her. I demanded to know why. She said only, “Some sins cannot be returned once they have grown into people.”

Jack stared at the words.

The room seemed to tilt.

He read on.

I wanted to tell you. God forgive me, I was afraid. We had Lucy. You were happy again. I told myself Abigail was mad. But sometimes I wonder whether our boy truly died.

At the bottom Mary had written:

If I ever find the courage, we will search together.

She never had.

Jack lowered the page.

For nearly twenty years, Mary had carried the suspicion alone.

He felt anger.

Then heartbreak.

Then understanding.

They had both done terrible things to survive grief.