He thought about lighting a cigarette. An open box of them sat on the coffee table. But he'd gone to the trouble to quit them several years ago, and didn't fancy going through all that again.

He shook the urge away.

Mrs MacElroy spoke, startling him. *Why the woods? Why not a hospital or an orphanage?'

*I can't imagine,' Nathan said.

He made a mental notation: do a little research into how hard it would be to locate this Mrs Ertha Bates.

*Well, it certainly does make you the big hero.'

*Oh, I wouldn't say that.'

*Why, that child would be dead if it wasn't for you.'

*I suppose that's true.'

*They should have mentioned your name.'

*Oh, nonsense. It doesn't matter.'

*It does, too. It was a huge thing you did. You deserve credit.'

*I don't need credit. It was the same thing anybody would have done.'

*I keep thinking of my own son when he was just born. Thinking of him left to fend for himself out in that dark forest. It just makes my blood run cold.'

*I can't imagine how anyone could do such a thing,' Nathan said.

The conversation sounded and felt distant and removed to him, the way voices in the next room sound just before you drop off to sleep.

*May I get you a cup of coffee before we start?' she asked.

*Oh, yes,' Nathan said. *Thank you. Coffee would be just the thing.'

When Nathan arrived home, Flora was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette and eating three fried eggs, despite the fact that it was late for breakfast. Nearly eleven.

The article sat folded next to her plate.

*Please don't say it,' Nathan said.

*I told you that boy might have family.'

*I asked you not to say it.'

*Oh, is that what you wanted me not to say? How was I to know that? I'm not a mind-reader, you know.'

He ducked out of the kitchen again. Sat near the living room phone and picked up the local directory. It was the first and most obvious step in the task of seeing how hard it would be to locate Mrs Ertha Bates.

As it turned out, finding her was not destined to be difficult at all.

He noted her address in his appointment book.

He looked up to see Flora watching him from the kitchen doorway. He quickly put the appointment book away in his pocket again.

*What are you up to?' she asked.

*I'm not up to anything,' he said. *I just needed to look up an address. I just needed an address out of the phone book. That's all.'

She disappeared again, and he sat a moment, lost in thought.

Today? he wondered. No. Not today. Not for several days.

It would be unconscionable to discuss his situation with Mrs Bates until they knew for a fact whether the child would even survive.

He mixed up Sadie's midday meal a canned and kibbled dog food with a little broth a and carried it out to her run in the yard. He stood and watched her while she ate. Leaning on the chain-link and talking to her.

*So, I guess that was our little brush with fame, eh, girl?'

The comfortable crunching sound of her deliberate chewing.

*Eleanor MacElroy thinks I should have been mentioned in the paper by name. She thinks it was a great accomplishment. But all I did was look where you were looking. And I'd bet anything that even if they had mentioned my name they wouldn't have mentioned yours. But you wouldn't care, would you? You probably care less about credit than I do.'

She glanced up at him briefly between bites.

*Who knew that child had a grandmother willing to take him? Then why didn't that girl abandon her baby at its grandmother's house?'

She chewed the last kibble and licked the bowl with her wide tongue. Then she looked up at him thoughtfully, her head tilted to one side.

*Oh, so you don't understand it either, eh?'

Though he knew the dog was really curious about whether Nathan had anything besides lunch to offer her.

He felt a sudden pang of regret for not stopping to buy her a rawhide or some other nice treat. Something to reward her for what she had done.

Instead he let her out into the yard so he could throw the ball for her.

He ran a hand through the tight ringlet curls on her chocolate-colored neck.

*So why was I so sure how that was going to turn out, then?' he asked her.

But her eyes were fixed on the ball he had just picked up from its hiding place on top of the fence.

And a better question, Nathan thought. How could I have been so preposterously wrong?

But he didn't ask that one out loud.

Right through lunch he played ball with her. Almost until it was time for his afternoon appointments.

5 October 1960.

The Day He Spoke His Piece For You.

The home of Mrs Ertha Bates was kept tidy, but it was old. Autumn leaves had gathered in great piles on the roof, and in the rain gutter. Nathan stood at the curb, taking in his surroundings. Thinking she should sweep those off before the first snows threatened. Nathan certainly would have had them off by now, if this had been his house. But he supposed she had no one to do the work for her.

That tight feeling had returned to his stomach again. And he didn't enjoy it one bit. It was fear, plain and simple, and Nathan knew there was no point in denying or recasting it. His grandfather probably would have said that all men feel fear, but cowardly men deny it. Or perhaps he even had said that at some point.

But the truth was, Nathan did not ordinarily feel fear. This morning was only the second time in many decades. In as long as he could even remember. It seemed odd, and he wondered at the significance of it. It was as though only in the last few days had he had anything too important to risk losing.

The porch boards creaked and sagged under Nathan's weight.

He rapped on the front door, into which was set an arrangement of tear-drop-shaped glass panes forming a half circle.

A curtain slid aside, and part of a woman's face peered through.

Then the door opened, and the whole of the woman appeared. Nathan could only assume it was Mrs Ertha Bates.

She stood on the sill, did not invite him in. She was a woman perhaps his own age or a bit younger a forty-something a but old-looking, as though used too roughly, with graying hair, a faded-but-clean dress, and a plain white apron.

*Yes?' she said.

Nathan held his hat in front of him.

*I'm the man who found your baby grandson in the woods.'

*I see.'

*Is that all you have to say to me? "I see"?'

He immediately regretted speaking to her that way. Although he had not raised his voice or betrayed anger. Still, there was a rudeness, an effrontery, to his comments. It had just come out that way, unbidden. Because he had anticipated some specific reaction, and not received it. Somehow he had expected more.

*I can't know what to say to you,' she said, *until I know more about what you've come to say to me.'

While they talked, her hands worked across that apron, smoothed and smoothed, as if trying to smooth away . . . what? Nathan wondered. Like all of us, probably only that which she was able to reach at the moment.

Of course, Nathan thought. She's afraid. Like me.

That knowledge put him more at ease.

State yourself to her, he thought. Quickly. While you're still sure of what you need to say.

*I wanted to adopt that boy.'

*So I heard.'

*But I didn't come to argue that.'

*Good,' she said. *Because I am his flesh and blood.'

*Yes,' Nathan said. *That is incontrovertible. Now let me tell you something else that also is. That boy would not exist if I had not been in just that place at just that moment. I'm not suggesting there was any special heroism involved, or that anyone else couldn't have done the same thing equally well. Only that it wasn't anyone else; it was me. No one can take that from me, any more than they can deny your claim by blood.'

There. That had been perfect. Just the way he'd rehearsed it in his imagination for days. Smooth and definite.

*What do you want from me?' she asked, beginning to sound unnerved.

*Only this, and I think it's reasonable: sometime in the course of that boy's life, I want him to know me. I want you to bring him to me when he's grown. Or half-grown. That's up to you. And I want you to introduce me, and say to him, "This is the man who found you in the woods." That way he'll know me. I will exist for him.'

Ertha Bates stood silent a moment, smoothing.

Then she said, *How would I find you?'

Nathan reached into his coat pocket and produced his business card. He'd been sure to have a supply along. And, in fact, he had even taken one out from its sterling-silver case, which had been a Christmas gift from Flora, so that he could produce it more easily. If asked.

Mrs Bates accepted the card without looking at it. It disappeared into one big apron pocket.

Her eyes found his directly.

*I'll have my hands full,' she said, *with managing the information this child will hear as he grows. This is not the largest town in the world, and he will all too likely bump into those who know more about the story than I might think he's ready to hear at any given time. I don't plan to tell him a ever a sir, that his mother threw him out like yesterday's garbage. I don't think it would be mentally healthy for a child to entertain such a truth.'

*I have always felt,' Nathan said, *that the truth is simply the truth. And perhaps does not exist for us to bend and revise. Or even filter to suit the feelings of those we love and want to protect.'

He watched her eyes, the change in her expression. She was leaving him, growing more distant. Closing to his requests.

Perhaps he had better take a more respectful tack. After all, this was not his grandson in question. It was hers. And she should be allowed to raise him using whatever methods and judgments she saw fit.

*Then again,' he said, *it's really not my decision. Is it? You are the one to decide how he should be raised. So if I have a chance to meet the boy, I won't introduce any topics you might deem inappropriate.'

He continued to watch her face, but she betrayed little.

Nathan made a mental notation to commiserate with her situation. The way you would when speaking to someone who has lost a loved one. After all, her daughter was in jail. The whole town was speaking of the girl a this poor woman's girl a as though she were the devil incarnate. And Mrs Bates, at a rather inappropriate age, had been unexpectedly saddled with the care of an unhealthy infant.

The least he could do was express a message of condolence for her in this most difficult time.

Ertha Bates sighed deeply.

*All right, then,' she said. *All right. As you say. When I think he's old enough to understand such a thing, I'll bring him around to see you.'

*Thank you.'

Nathan replaced his hat, turned, and took a few creaky steps. Then he looked over his shoulder, hoping she had not gone back inside.

She had not.