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and toothless. She looked well, if not too clean.
    Autumn came but Sheila didn’t. I received a puzzled note from Sandy saying that Sheila had been withdrawn from the register. It was Anton who investigated the matter and wrote back to tell me that Sheila and her father had moved to a small city on the far side of the state, some two hundred miles away. They had left in June, just after school had let out, apparently because her father thought he had found a job.
    I wrote to the only address I had, her old one, and received no answer. Distressed at the thought that I had actually lost contact with Sheila, I made a few phone calls in an effort to trace her. During the course of these, I discovered that she had apparently gone into foster care at the end of thesummer, but it was only a rumor and I couldn’t confirm it. I knew no one in this new city to which she and her father had moved and I was twelve hundred miles away. It proved impossible to find out where she was and how she was doing.
    This upset me profoundly. Confiding in an older colleague one afternoon after an abortive effort to trace Sheila, I was reassured that this was better, that I shouldn’t try to hold on to old students. She smiled gently and patted my shoulder. “Never look back. You’ve got to love them and leave them.”
    It was three years before I managed to go back to Marysville to visit my old friends. By then Anton was gone. He had completed his two-year course at the community college and won a scholarship to the state university to finish his bachelor’s degree. I visited with Sandy, however, and Whitney, who was now a senior in high school; and I went back to walk through my old classroom, now converted into a resource center.
    Chad and I had separated amicably and we’d stayed in touch. He was married now to a fellow lawyer named Lisa and she was expecting their first child in a month’s time.
    We decided to lunch together and I came up to his law office to meet him. He had been held up in a meeting, so I paced languidly about the reception desk waiting for him. It was then I noticed a paper lying in the outgoing basket. I just caught it with the corner of my eye, but the name pulled me back. It was Sheila’s father’s name. Glancing at thereceptionist, I realized I couldn’t really look, but I was desperate to hear what Chad had to say.
    “Didn’t you know he’s back in prison?” Chad replied to my query.
    “ No. When did this happen? You never told me.”
    “Well, I couldn’t really, could I?” he said apologetically. “I mean, confidentiality and all. Besides, I assumed you did know.” What he didn’t mention was that we had never exchanged much more than Christmas cards anyway since we’d parted. But still, I felt somehow cheated.
    Chad smiled gently. “I’m not handling many legal aid cases these days, so I didn’t know myself until I saw the folder.”
    “What’s happened?”
    “I can’t really discuss it, Torey.”
    “I’m not just anybody, Chad. I was the one who brought him to you in the first place.” I was feeling hurt and heartsick. I knew it was hardly Chad’s fault and I fully understood his need to keep confidence with clients, but the shock made me irritable.
    “Well, suffice it to say he’s been wholly predictable. He’s up for the same tricks as always.”
    “Where’s Sheila then?”
    “Don’t know. He’s been living over in Broadview for a couple of years now and he was arrested and booked over there. They sent over here just looking for files. I’ve never seen him or anything.”
    “But where’s Sheila?” I murmured, lowering my head.
    Heartbroken at this discovery, I endeavored to find out about Sheila’s fate, but I had few resources at my fingertips. Broadview was still two hundred miles off and was a much bigger city. Finding one small girl was no easy matter. The most I could confirm was that she had been taken into foster care as a direct result of her father’s arrest and