“We don’t know yet.”
“Can you read it?”
“Not from the still.”
I looked at the image again.
There was something attached to the cage near the bottom corner.
A small metal tag.
I couldn’t read the writing.
But I recognized the shape.
It looked like the kind of identification tag used for animals.
I felt cold.
“What was inside?”
The responder didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said, “We’re still determining that.”
I looked away.
My wife had always talked about preparation.
She believed in teaching our daughter to be independent.
She had told me that children needed challenges.
She had even complained that I was too quick to pick our daughter up whenever she fell.
I remembered one evening when our daughter had stumbled in the living room.
My wife had stopped me from reaching her.
“Let her figure it out,” she’d said.
Our daughter had looked between us, confused.
