I adopted a five-year-old girl I found wrapped in my late daughter’s jacket – years later, she handed me a note and said, “Your daughter asked me to give this to you today.”

girl standing near the side wall.

She was tiny. Maybe five. Quiet in the way frightened children often are, as if making less sound might keep the world from noticing them. She had one shoe untied and both hands shoved into the pockets of a jacket that was much too big for her.

I knew that jacket.

I looked once, then again.

Then I stopped moving. I knew continue reading …