Before she has a chance to say anything, I say, “Is Baby with you?”

Ree looks down at the duffel bag she cradles in her arms and shakes her head. “I had to move to underground parking at the library last night to keep out of the storm. I came over here to get Baby and Jewel’s bag and he was gone.”

“Did you go looking for him?” I ask hopefully.

Ree pulls on one of her dreadlocks. “Storm was too cold. I couldn’t drag Ajax around in it.”

“Holy moly,” I mutter.

Ree looks at my dad like she’s just now noticed him.

“Your father?” she asks.

I nod. Then I say, “Where do you think Baby went?”

Ree sighs. “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s trying to find his way to Mercy Hospital, where Jewel is.”

Jewel. How could I have forgotten?

“You found her yesterday?” I ask.

“We found her, me and Baby.” Ree proceeds to tell me and Daddy about the bus ride to Mercy Memorial, and sneaking Baby into the hospital. “She’s got severe pneumonia,” Ree says. “If she hadn’t gotten to the hospital when she did, the nurse said she would have died.”

“I bet she felt better after seeing Baby, though,” I say.

Ree nods. “I’m not a crier,” she says, and I believe her, “but I got pretty choked up seeing those two together.” She shakes her head. “Baby did not want to leave her.”

Imagining what it must have been like for both Baby and Jewel to see each other again after a week apart gets me pretty choked up too.

“What’s in there?” Daddy nods at the duffel bag in Ree’s arms.

“Everything Jewel had to her name,” Ree says. “Except Baby.”

Daddy studies the canvas bag. I know he’s thinking about the two suitcases and one duffel bag we brought with us that held everything we had to our name.

Ree shoves the duffel bag at him. “Here, you keep this safe.”

Daddy takes a step back and puts his hands up. “We can’t be getting involved.”

Ree glares at him. “Involved?”

“What did you do with it when you went to the hospital before?” Daddy’s got that stubborn set to his jaw. Ree raises her chin. Two bulls locking horns.

Like she’s talking to a two-year-old, Ree says, “A friend kept it for me.”

She tosses the bag at Daddy. He catches it. “It’ll be safer with you. I can’t be hauling it around while I’m looking for Baby,” she says.

My heart has been so heavy, I’m surprised when it lifts. “You’re going to look for Baby?”

“Of course I am,” she says. “Linda volunteered to look after Ajax while I take the bus to the hospital.”

Ajax looks up at Ree with pure adoration at the sound of his name.