“Who gave these to us, Dad?” Grace asked, her fingers tapping faster now. “Did the police give them to you?”
“No,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “They were wrapped around you in the changing stall.”
“Then whoever left us there put these things inside,” Emily said, her academic precision returning as she leaned over the table. “They wanted us to find them.”
“Or they wanted them hidden from whoever was looking for you,” I said, the thought rising in my mind before I could stop it.
The kitchen was quiet, save for the steady, rhythmic click of the ceiling fan. The peaceful life I had built for eighteen years felt suddenly thin, like a sheet of paper held up to a flame.
“Get the scissors, Dad,” Grace said.
“We should wait,” I said, looking at the two bundles on the table. “We do not know what is in there.”
“We need to know our medical history, Dad,” Emily said, pointing to her left knee. “If this is something genetic, I need to know before we register for classes next month.”
The deadline for their Savannah State enrollment was October fifteenth, only a few weeks away, and the university required certified birth certificates we did not have.
I stood up and walked to the small utility drawer beside the refrigerator, my hand brushing against the cold metal handle.
Inside the drawer, beneath the spare keys and the old grocery receipts, lay the long, heavy sewing shears my mother had used for her quilting.
I lifted the heavy shears, the steel cold against my palm, and walked back to the kitchen table where my daughters sat waiting.
I sat down, pulled the white-sail emblem of the blue towel toward me, and aligned the sharp blades of the shears with the thick gray thread of the double-stitched hem.
