“But,” he began, wondering how this little girl knew so much more about his own mother than he did. “Why did she, I mean why was she out at that time?”

“Why?”

Phil nodded. “Why was she out walking in the middle of the morning?”

Tammy shrugged. “Looking for something to save, maybe?”

Phil nearly dropped the box as a long buried memory came rushing in of his mother racing outside to pull his little sister out from the rubber kiddy pool in their front yard. But it had been too late. His little sister was dead. She blamed herself, Phil knew that, and his mother was never the same. More anxious, more cautious. Nothing he or his father could do ever seemed to make her laugh or smile after that.