I had dismissed it as a family legend.
Now the woman in front of me was looking at me as though I had returned from the dead.
I stepped backward.
“How do you know that name?”
Richard moved beside his wife.
“Emily, this is Margaret Harrison. She is my wife.”
Margaret barely seemed to hear him.
She stretched both arms toward me.
“My baby. Oh, my little baby.”
I shook my head.
“No. This can’t be happening.”
Richard’s voice was gentle.
“Margaret has a serious illness that affects her memory. Some days, she recognizes the people around her. Other days, she struggles to remember what happened an hour earlier.”
He paused.
“But there is one night she has never forgotten.”
He pointed toward the clock on the bedside table.
“October fifteenth, 1981.”
My mouth went dry.
The date was written on the back of the photograph.
“What happened on that night?”