Ruth leaned against him. She smelled the salty bay water in the air and listened to the sound of it rush onto the shore. Water gathering onto itself, then dispersing. She felt hypnotized by this. It took her to a place in her mind that felt familiar.

For some reason it made her think of her own mother.

“I used to wonder what my mama was like.”

“Your mama?” said Pete.

“Yeah, I wonder if she done things like I do them or looked like me.”

“I’ll bet she looked like you.”

“I wonder if she ever thought about me.”

“’Course she did. You know she loved you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because who couldn’t love you?”

“Then why’d she leave me? Who leaves their own baby?”

Pete gave no response.

Ruth closed her eyes. She smelled the languid air and took in the humid world. She thought of the dreams that were lodged in the back of her mind, untouched. Things she hadn’t thought about in a long time. This water. It was as though she had seen it before. The thought started small, then grew like a weed inside her head.

Then an idea came to her.

She went inside and opened the cigar box full of her things. She emptied the contents, the sentimental knickknacks. The sticks of gum, the mood ring, the hard rock candy Vern gave her on her thirteenth birthday. She found the newspaper clipping. She traced her finger along the text.

Lost baby rescued near Rabbit Creek, Mobile, Ala.

She wandered back outside to Pete and sat beside him. “I wanna go to Rabbit Creek,” she said.

He read it and furrowed his brow. “What’s this?”

“It was Paul’s.”

Pete read it a few times, then flipped it over. “How do we find Rabbit Creek?” he said. “We ain’t never been here before.”

She folded the clipping and placed it in her pocket. “You haven’t, but I have.”

Eighty-Five
Madness

There was a full moon that night. Marigold saw it and felt the beauty of it. It lit the night with an electric blue light. The crowd outside the courthouse had transformed the lawn into a camp. There were small campfires on the grass with people seated around them. There were tents with children asleep inside. There were vehicles parked in uneven rows on the grass, doors splayed open, with quilts hanging from the doors like awnings.

“This is madness,” said the sheriff. “Who are these people?”

Marigold was dressed in a deputy’s uniform. Her hair was tucked beneath an officer’s cap, and she wore uncomfortable men’s shoes that made her feet hurt.

The sheriff and Coot escorted Marigold to the squad car across the parking lot. Joseph followed them. Two deputies with rifles followed him. They weaved through the murmuring crowd, who all stood when the deputies passed.