“Well, I guess we’ll have to go have fun without you,” my mother said with a laugh, totally oblivious.
Bill smiled. “You all have fun,” he said.
And then we went out into the city. I felt as though I was able to appreciate the city more than I had in the past because I was there with Cole, and he was obviously enjoying being there very much. Declan alternated between holding his hand and holding my hand, and gazing with rapt delight at the tall buildings, the yellow taxis speeding by, the throngs of people passing us in every direction.
We went to the Children’s Museum first, since Declan had been such a good sport about not going to LEGOLAND.
“Oooh, look at all those balloons!” Declan said, pointing to a brightly-colored array of helium-filled balloons.
“Maybe we’ll get you one on the way out, bud,” Cole said.
Declan was easily distracted from the balloons, though, because there was so much cool stuff. We checked out the dinosaur exhibit, the construction zone, and the Raceways exhibit. I felt like I was a kid again, though my mother and I had only come to the Children’s Museum once that I could remember, a long time ago, when I’d been maybe 7 or 8.
And my mother was right there, taking pictures of Declan, of Cole and me, of the three of us. At one point, she thrust the phone at Cole and asked him to take a picture of us.
“I can’t remember the last mother/daughter picture we had,” she said, wrapping her arms around my waist.
We went to the Countdown for Kindergarten exhibit (since Declan would be going to kindergarten soon, he proudly informed us), and then we checked out the bubble display. Then Declan said that he was getting hungry, but since we hadn’t brought any food with us, my mother asked if we wanted to walk to the Barking Crab, which wasn’t too far away.
“I could really go for a lobster roll right about now,” she said.
We all agreed that some food would be good, so we started to make our way to the exit.
There was a group of people leaving at the same time, and we fell in step with them. “I’m going to text Bill a couple of these pictures,” Mom said, pulling her phone out of her purse. “I got some good ones.”
Declan was holding onto Cole’s right hand, I was holding onto Cole’s left, and we stepped through the glass doors and out onto the sidewalk.
“That was so great,” I said, and I turned to Cole and smiled up at him, then leaned in and gave him a quick kiss.
The smile on his face deepened, and he turned to face me, bringing his hands up to cup either side of my face and return the kiss. It was longer, though, and when he pulled back, he looked me right in the eyes. “I’m really glad we are all here together,” he said. He kissed my forehead and then looked down at Declan. “You too, bud—” he started to say, but then stopped. “Declan?”
Cole looked to his left, then his right, and I looked too, but Declan wasn’t where he had just been a few moments ago.
“Where’d he go?” Cole asked. His eyes shot past me, looking down the street. “Declan!” he yelled. The people walking past looked at us. “Declan!”
My mother had been several feet behind us, texting Bill. She looked up when she heard us yelling. “What’s the matter?” she said.
> “Where’s Declan?” I said. “Do you see him?”
She shook her head. “I thought he was with you...”
A strange calmness descended over me, even as my mother’s eyes widened and Cole continued to bellow Declan’s name. He would appear at any moment, I just knew it; he’d step out from around the corner, he’d have a big grin on his face, we’d chastise him for not staying within our line of vision... I just knew this was going to happen.
Except it didn’t.
Cole went down to one end of the block and disappeared around the corner, then came back, rushing toward me, shaking his head. My mother had gone the other way, and I looked behind us, asked the people coming out if they had seen a little boy who looked like Declan, wearing...wearing... what the hell had he been wearing? I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t want to give them the wrong information.
I went back inside to see if maybe Declan had wandered back in, past my mother without her noticing. There was no sign of him. I did see a security guard though, so I went over to him and told him that we couldn’t find Declan.
“How long has he been missing for?” he asked, his face very serious.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not that long. Less than a minute, really.”
And then Cole was pushing his way back inside, his eyes wide, frantic, even though I could tell he was trying to keep himself under control. The security officer was speaking into his walkie talkie.
“You’re his parents?” he said to us.
“Yes, well, I’m his father,” Cole said. “His name’s Declan. He’s 4. He’s about this tall, he’s got light brown hair, blue eyes...he was wearing... I think he was wearing a gray T-shirt with a fire truck on it and blue cargo shorts. Navy blue. I’m going back out there to look for him; I don’t think he came back in here.”