“Of course. Putting him on now.”
There was a rustle of the phone being passed, and then I heard a sound that will haunt me until the day I die. It was a small, ragged intake of breath.
“Mom?” Elliot whispered. He was holding back sobs, trying to be brave, just like I had foolishly taught him to be.
My heart dropped so hard I felt physically dizzy. I practically ran down the hall, pushing through the heavy fire doors into the concrete stairwell to find privacy.
“I’m here, baby,” I said, my voice cracking. “Mommy is right here. Are you okay? Did you get separated in the crowd?”
“They… they left me,” he sniffled, the dam finally breaking. He began to cry, thick, heavy tears that translated through the phone line like physical blows to my chest.
“What do you mean, sweetheart?” I asked, my hands trembling violently. “Did you lose them?”
“No,” he sobbed, his voice echoing in the concrete stairwell. “They were mad because I had to go to the bathroom. Grandma said I was slowing everyone down. They said I had to hold it. But I couldn’t. I went into the bathroom. I came out and they were gone. I waited and waited. I heard Grandpa say before I went in, ‘We’re leaving. Your mom can deal with it.’ And then… they went home. Mom, they left the park. They went home.”
The breath was completely knocked out of me. The narrative my brain was desperately trying to construct—a tragic but common tale of a child wandering off in a sea of tourists—shattered. This wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t a momentary lapse of attention.
They had walked away. From a six-year-old. In a park holding tens of thousands of strangers.
