“Why are you asking me anyway?” she says.

“There was a U.S. marshal here earlier from Austin,” I say. “I was just thinking that maybe he was here because of some tie your father has to the city.”

“To Austin?”

“Yes,” I say.

She pauses, considers, reaching for something.

“Maybe,” she says. “A long time ago… It’s possible I was there for a wedding. When I was really little. I mean, I’m pretty sure I was a flower girl because they made me pose for all these photos. And I think someone told me we were in Austin.”

“How sure are you?”

“Not sure,” she says. “As not sure as you can get.”

“Well what do you remember about the wedding?” I ask, trying to narrow down the window.

“I don’t know… all I remember is we were all there.”

“So your mother too?” I say.

“I think so, yeah. But the part I remember best I don’t think she was with us for. My dad and I left the church and went on a walk, and he brought me to the football stadium. There was a game going on. I’d never seen anything like it. This enormous stadium. All lit up. Everything was orange.”

“Orange?” I say.

“Orange lights, orange uniforms. I loved orange, I was obsessed with Garfield, so you know… that’s what I remember. My father pointing to the colors and saying, it’s like Garfield.”

“And you think you were at a church?”

“Yeah, a church. Either in Texas or nowhere near Texas,” she says.

“But you never asked your father after that where the wedding was? You never asked him for any details?”

“No. Why would I?”

“Good point.”

“Besides, it makes him upset if I bring up the past,” she says.

That surprises me. “Why do you think?”

“ ’Cause of how little I remember about my mother.”

I stay quiet. But Owen did mention something similar to me. He’d taken Bailey to a therapist when she was little, her mom seemingly blocked from her mind. The therapist told Owen this was common. It was a defense mechanism to ease the abandonment of losing a parent as young as Bailey was when she’d lost Olivia. But Owen thought it was bigger than that, and, for some reason, he seemed to blame himself for it.

Bailey closes her eyes, as if thinking of her mother is too much, as if thinking about her father is now too much too. She wipes at her eyes, but not before I see a tear escape. Not before she knows I see it. She’s not even trying to hide how alone she feels. And I know something then, brushing up against Bailey in that kind of pain. I will do anything I can to make it go away. To help her. I’ll do anything to make her feel okay again.