Winston looked up from his son's face toward the barefoot girl still standing before him, snow continuing to dust her thin shoulders, her expression carrying a fragile mixture of hope and uncertainty about what came next for her now that she'd delivered the child safely into his arms.
He crouched down carefully, still holding Theo securely against his chest, bringing himself to the girl's eye level with a gentleness that carried the full weight of his overwhelming gratitude.
"What's your name?" he asked softly. "Both of you — yours, and can you tell me exactly where you found him?"
The girl hesitated only briefly before answering, her voice small but steady despite the cold visibly affecting her thin frame. "My name is Josie," she said. "I found him behind the old groundskeeper's shed, near the back fence. Someone left him there, wrapped in that blanket, in a different box. I didn't know whose baby he was, but I knew I couldn't just leave him."