Dewey finally gave me the name Wendell Cole and an address beyond the grain elevator on Route 79. Cole was Jimmy’s last name. I drove there immediately with the old locket beside me and stopped outside a little white house with a wheelchair ramp. The man answering the door had Jimmy’s unmistakable eyes in an older, harder face. The moment Wendell saw the locket in my hand, all the color disappeared from his cheeks.

“Ruth Ellen Mayer,” he said bitterly. “You’ve got some nerve.” I showed him the hospital wristband hidden inside the locket and explained what my mother had told me decades earlier: Jimmy had left town with another girl from Quincy. Wendell’s expression hardened. Then he said something that made the world beneath my feet seem to disappear. “Your mother told my brother you were dead.” I stared at him, unable to speak. Wendell sat down slowly and began explaining what had really happened on July fourteenth all those years ago.

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