THE HOSPITAL SAID MY NINE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER WAS GONE — AND MY HUSBAND BE.GGED THEM NOT TO LET ME SEE HER. TWO WEEKS AFTER THE FU.NERAL, OUR LOYAL DOG DR.OPPED HER YELLOW CARDIGAN AT MY FEET. IT WASN’T TORN. IT SMELLED LIKE HER SHAMPOO. AND THE SLEEVES WERE STILL WET WITH PURPLE PAINT.

“That’s the only reason she’s in there painting.”

“The driver got out.”

“He didn’t check on us.”

“He went to Ruby’s door.”

“He was pulling on the handle.”

“She was screaming.”

“She was screaming a name.”

He stopped.

His jaw worked.

“She was screaming, ‘Don’t let Dale take me.'”

The orchard went silent.

Dale.

Dale Harlan.

Ruby’s biological father.

I was twenty-two when I had her.

He was twenty-six.

He was charming for exactly one year.

Then he wasn’t.

He broke my arm when Ruby was eight months old.

I was holding her when he did it.

He went to prison when she was two.

Jason came into our lives that same year.

He adopted her when she was four.

Dale was supposed to be gone.

Dale was supposed to be a story I’d tell Ruby when she was older.

Not a man at her car door.

“A witness yelled,” Jason said.