Today's writing

Let’s cut to the chase: of course we found him. He’d gone to the café down the street, French Hotel, before it changed its name to something incomprehensible. We were just going down Shattuck asking various business owners if they’d seen a little boy, and the guys at French Hotel had. They’d set him up with a cookie and a hot chocolate and had just – as we walked in the door – found his phone number in his backpack.

 

“We were going to call you!” the guy at the counter crowed when we came in. “But you got here first!”

 

The hugs. Oh, the hugs. And still I was hyperventilating. I didn’t stop when we got back to the car. I didn’t stop on the drive home. I only stopped when we were safely behind our own front door.

 

And isn’t that the irony? Because in the end, that’s where it happened. In the supposed safety and security of his own bedroom. Instead, that’s what he planned within those walls. Right there in that small square of life. Planned and executed.

 

While I’m at it, I’m going to tell you the worst thought I’ve had through this whole thing: At least he didn’t go shoot up a school.

 

God forgive me.