Then I looked at my son.
Water ran from his hair. His shirt was plastered to him, and his lips were quivering.
“Eli,” I said, pulling him inside. “Where’s your umbrella, baby?”
He met my eyes, and my stomach clenched.
I prayed it was not the blue one. Please, not the blue one.
“It’s gone, Mom,” he whispered.
The blue umbrella had never been costly. It had a wooden handle, a sticky silver button, and Darren’s slanted handwriting written inside the strap because Eli used to misplace everything when he was small.
But that umbrella, he never misplaced.
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