The next morning, Sunday, I was exhausted after a fitful night of sleep. I flopped into a kitchen chair.

“How’s Leira?” I asked a nose-in-book Stanley.

“The good news is that she and your mom are sleeping.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“They were up all night.”

I stopped feeling sorry for myself.

“What did the doctor say?”

“That sleep is a very good sign, but if she doesn’t eat today, she needs to go to the emergency room.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sleep is definitely the good news.”

Stanley situated his bookmark, closed his book, and got up to refill his coffee.

I looked at the title to his latest read: The Painted Ladies. On the cover was a row of Victorian houses in pastel hues of lavender, powder blue, mint green, and pink.

“Pretty racy title,” I said, turning the book to face me. The name tugged at my subconscious; I heard the snap of neurons firing.

Stanly chuckled as he dropped a glug of half-and-half into his cup. “Just getting a few ideas on how to restore this old lady.” He sat back down across from me, resting his steaming mug on a coaster. Leaving the book facing me, he fanned the pages; they shuffled like an animated strip. Something about the way they fluttered into place reminded me of my vision quest. The girl had ripped the pieces of paper into squares and thrown them into the air, scrambling them. On a hunch, I grabbed a notepad and pencil from the countertop and jotted “dinky pal” across the top of the paper. Crossing letters off one by one and reassembling them below, I ended up with a likely rearrangement: pink lady. Parcel from a pink lady. Could it be? But what pink lady? What parcel? At that moment, it didn’t make any more sense to me than dinky pal. But, if nothing else, it was progress. In celebration, I voluntarily refilled the cup for big-gulping Stanley. What he lacked in café etiquette, he made up for in choice of reading material. OK, he was also a pretty nice guy. Yep, I was feeling that good about a first puzzle piece finally sliding into place.