A woman walked among the cribs in the middle row, carrying a bucketful of baby bottles. She turned over the babies who were on their stomachs. A second woman rolled rags to prop up the bottles and then stuck them in the babies’ mouths. When a baby’s feeble shriek protested the loss of the bottle, she shoved it back in. Other infants lost their bottles and simply closed their eyes.

The women gestured for Nola to leave.

Her fists clenched, she stood still. There were thousands of orphanages like this one all over China. She could sink all her money into them, but it would be sucked into a black hole. There must be a better way. A grassroots swell of public outrage would translate into collective power. Drops of water could come together to create a great river. A large enough flow of water could wear down a stone, Daniel had said. If ferocious enough, water could move boulders, break dams. It could force the Chinese government to right this wrong.

From the bottom of the stairwell, Leslie called to Nola, then bounded up the steps. Thirty feet away, the women’s hand motions, shooing Nola away, were clear. She remained standing, taking the strangeness in the room, some imbalance she couldn’t pinpoint. Then she knew. The babies in the wake of feeding were asleep, or nearly so. Their sluggishness was not the contentment of feeding, but the stupor of drugs.

She tried to convince herself that Lulu was not being intoxicated in one of these institutions, but the notion failed to find a corner of comfort within her. Her gaze traveled up and down the aisles.

One of the women reached her. As if pulled by a magnet, Nola stepped around her. The woman yanked at her arm, but Leslie shoved the woman away, urging Nola to leave, but she kept on moving, her eyes searching each of the cribs.

Her blood slammed in her ears a split second before the information registered in her brain. There were the pink pajamas with the butterfly print.

CHAPTER 19 (1986)

At the Seven Stars Diner, plates clattered and waitresses called orders into the kitchen, children ran around, and everything was normal, except that in the booth seat across from Nola was Mr. Wade Dalton. From Musix! He had taken her to the diner after the school football game and ordered her a hamburger. Since she didn’t know what else to do, she ate. Anything tasted better than Miss Helga’s cooking. The woman’s chicken was so overdone she might as well have laundered it in the washing machine.

Mr. D. said, “This has been quite a surprise. What a voice! What projection!”