Beneath that paragraph Rebecca had written dozens of names.
Women Sadie remembered.
Women who had supposedly lost infants.
Women who had moved away.
Women Oakhaven had called unfortunate.
Cursed.
Weak.
Sadie could barely see.
Your husband’s signature appears on the surrender document.
Her heart stopped.
Amos.
No.
She looked toward the ledger.
Gideon opened it.
There, beside an entry dated March 17, was her name.
Sadie Whitcomb — male infant — $180 received.
Below it:
Authorization: Amos Whitcomb.
Sadie stared.
Something inside her broke.
Not loudly.
Quietly.
The way lake ice breaks beneath snow.
“My husband sold him.”
Caleb stepped backward.
Sadie looked at the boy.
His dark hair.
His gray-green eyes.
Amos’s eyes.
God help her.
She had noticed them the first day.
She had refused to notice.
She stood.
Caleb retreated farther.
“Don’t.”
Sadie froze.
His face was twisted with terror.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m something that happened to you.”
Her heart shattered all over again.
She forced herself not to move closer.
“You’re right.”
Caleb stared.
“You don’t know me,” she whispered. “And I don’t get to take twelve years from Rebecca just because I gave birth to you.”
His eyes filled.
Sadie could barely speak.
“She was your mother.”
Caleb’s chin trembled.
“Yes.”
“And if you never call me that, I will still be grateful for every day I get to know you.”
He looked at her for a long time.
Then walked outside.
Into the storm.
Sadie followed.
She found him inside the stable with his arms around his knees.
Snow blew through the doorway.
He was crying silently.
Sadie sat several feet away.
“I remember your cry.”
Caleb did not look up.
“One cry,” she continued. “That’s all they let me hear.”
His shoulders shook.
“I thought about it for years. Wondered whether I imagined it.”
Caleb touched the broken locket.
Sadie suddenly remembered.
The locket.
She reached beneath her dress.
A thin chain emerged.
On it hung another broken piece of silver.
Caleb stared.
Sadie had worn it for twelve years.
The letter S on his half joined the tiny W on hers.
The pieces fit perfectly.
S.W.
Sadie Whitcomb.
The locket Amos had given her during their first winter together.
She had been wearing it when she went into labor.
One half vanished that night.
Sadie had always thought the chain had snapped.
Caleb reached toward the joined pieces.
His fingers touched hers.
Neither spoke.
Finally he whispered, “Did you want me?”
Sadie’s breath broke.
“Oh, Caleb.”
She moved slowly.
Giving him time to refuse.
He did not.
Sadie wrapped her arms around him.
The twelve-year-old boy collapsed against her.
“I wanted you every day I thought you were dead.”
The next morning, Gideon found something beneath the ledger.
A second envelope.
This one addressed to him.
Rebecca’s final letter.
She explained everything.
After taking Caleb from the mission, Rebecca had fled west.
She had intended to return him immediately.
But men connected to Mrs. Pritchard found her.
She moved repeatedly.
By the time she reached Montana, she learned from a newspaper notice that Amos Whitcomb had died.
Sadie gasped.
Rebecca continued.
I believed for years that Amos sold the boy willingly.
