Chapter 35. The Four Strands of Memory

Josie's POV

She came out of the laurel at a quarter to midnight, exactly where she said she'd been every birthday for twenty-three years: twenty feet from the oak, in the dark, where a little girl kicking a tree would never think to look.

Walt was standing beside me. He'd insisted. He had his barn coat on and no gun, which for my father is the equivalent of a white flag.

My mother stopped at the edge of the field when she saw him.

They looked at each other across the wet grass for a long time. The man who'd found me. The woman who'd lost me. I'd never thought, until that moment, about what it would be like for them to meet.

"Mr. Morrow," my mother said.

"Ma'am."

"You gave her warm milk on the porch. The first mo