He guided Grace to the page and explained the significance of the color orange. Grace read her daughter’s note, and when done, she looked up questioningly.

“What baseball game?”

Gibson told her the story.

“You know, I remember that weekend,” she said when he was finished. “I’d been in California for a week, visiting family, and got back the next morning. Benjamin hadn’t been to bed. It was the angriest that I’ve ever seen him. We had such a terrible fight. And Suzanne. My God. She was a zombie for days.” She looked at the cap again. “Is that where she got it? At this game?”

“My father bought it for her on the way home. To try and calm her down. You really never saw it before Breezewood?”

“Not until now. Not in person anyway. Do you know how long I stared into her eyes? Stared into that awful frozen frame of my little girl? Trying to guess what it was she was thinking? Why she ran away from me?”

“I don’t think she ran away from you,” he said.

“That’s sweet of you to say, but she did run away.” She paused and considered his words. “But not from me, you mean.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What could it possibly have to do with a baseball cap? You don’t think it was an accident she was wearing it in the tape.”

“No, ma’am. I think it was a message.”

“A message? To whom?”

“To me.”

“What does it mean?”

Gibson paused, trying to gauge the moment. At some point, he was going to have to drop the hammer on her. Was this it? He didn’t want Grace to suffer, but he needed for it to hurt. It was the only way she would see. He took a breath and said it as levelly as he could.

“Bear was pregnant.”

It sucked the air out of the room. Grace opened her mouth several times to speak. Her face darkened, and she stood slowly.

“I should have known better. It was a mistake to see you. Gibson, I think about the sweet little boy you were and the man you’ve become. I don’t know how it is possible. I’ll have Denise show you out.”

Grace was slipping away from him as he knew she would. It was as necessary as it was cruel. She stood way out on a terrible ledge, and the fall would shatter her. Better to cast him as a liar than make the leap. But he thought he had seen a glimmer of awareness in her eyes, if only for a moment.

He held out the last picture. Bear pregnant. She snatched it from him and held it in both hands, rooted to the spot. Gibson stepped in close to her and spoke quietly.