I Found Two Babies in a Cardboard Box on Route 66—Then Their Missing Mother’s Warning Named the Man Asking to Take Them Home

He did not say Mara was safe.

Those omissions left room for more possibilities than I wanted to hold at once.

A parent might have panicked.

Someone might have taken the children.

The note might be genuine or misleading.

Mara might have left voluntarily and then encountered trouble.

She might be watching from somewhere and waiting for news.

I looked at her photograph.