He did not look at me. He stared straight ahead through the windshield at the gray asphalt of the highway.
“He was wearing a red shirt,” Raymond said, his voice raspy and thin.
I froze, my hand stopping mid-air above the ignition key.
“What did you say?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper after a long pause.
Raymond reached into his tattered coat pocket and withdrew a small, square object. He laid it flat on the passenger seat between us, his dirty fingers leaving a gray smudge on the white border.
It was a Polaroid photograph, the colors faded to a dull, warm sepia, but the image was clear enough. A three-year-old boy in a red t-shirt was standing near the bumper of a white car, his small hand holding a blue plastic hair clip.
On the white margin at the bottom of the photo, a street address was written in thick black ink: 412 Elm Lane.
“Who took this?” I asked, my hand finding my bare ring finger, rubbing the dry skin.
Raymond did not answer. He slid out of the passenger seat, leaving the door slightly ajar as he stepped back into the gravel of the shoulder.
“You take care now, Margaret,” he said.
He turned and walked toward the tree line, his figure blurring into the deep shadows of the pines before I could even open my mouth to call him back.
I stared at the photograph on the seat, my mind racing as I looked at the handwritten address. The realization settled over me like a cold draft that the man in the tattered coat knew my name without me ever having told him.
By eight the next morning, the smell of damp pine needles still clung to my winter coat on the wooden peg by the back door, but the kitchen smelled only of toast. Evelyn set her heavy brass magnifying glass on the oilcloth table and polished her reading glasses with the hem of her blue cardigan. Outside, the autumn wind was shaking the last dry maple leaves onto the lawn.
