Why Did The Boy On The Sidewalk Wear A Silver Locket And Call Me Mom

The black sedan turned at the light and was gone. I kept staring at the empty space where it had been, my hand tight around my phone. The screen had gone dim again, but I could still see the time burned in at the top. 8:47.

Ethan shifted closer to my leg. The other boy hadn't moved from the cardboard. He sat with his knees pulled in, the big box beside him taped at one corner and soft at the other from damp. Inside the open storefront behind us, a radio played low and somebody laughed. Out here, the air smelled like wet concrete and fried food from a cart down the block.

I crouched down a little so I wasn't towering over them. My knees popped. I slid my thumb across the phone to wake it.

There was one new message. Unknown number. No name.

I read it twice before I let myself breathe. Leave him where he is. Walk away with your son. Do not get involved.

My fingers went cold. I looked up fast, checking the street both ways. A bus rolled past. A man pushed a dolly of produce. Nobody was looking at us. Whoever sent that had been close enough to see me, or to have someone see me for them.

Ethan tugged my jacket sleeve. "Mom," he said. His voice was thin. "Why does he look like me?"

I didn't answer right away. I put the phone face-down against my thigh like that could stop it. The two boys were staring at each other now, not staring exactly, just glancing and looking away. Same messy brown hair. Same shape to their chins. Ethan was cleaner, his cheeks fuller, his navy sweatshirt zipped straight. The other boy's beige t-shirt hung loose with a hole near the collar, and his pants were dark with dirt at the knees. But the likeness was there, plain in daylight, and it made my stomach turn.

"Maybe you guys just... have the same kind of hair," I said. It sounded weak even to me.

Ethan frowned. "No. His face is my face."

The boy on the cardboard looked down at his hands. "It's okay," he said quietly. "People say that sometimes."

Something in the way he said it, practiced, like he'd learned not to ask too much about it, got to me. I sat down on the edge of the curb so we were all low together. The sidewalk was cold through my jeans.

"I'm still here," I told them. "I'm not leaving yet."

I turned my phone over again. The message was still there. Leave him where he is. I thought about the older woman in the back of that sedan, her mouth open in shock. I hadn't imagined that. She'd looked right at this boy. She'd looked like she'd seen something she thought was buried.

Ethan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He pointed, but politely, his finger tucked back. "What's that necklace?"

The boy lifted the silver oval locket with two fingers. The chain was thin and darkened in the links. He held it out enough for us to see without taking it off.

"It was on me," he said. "My aunt said I had it since I was a baby."

Ethan's eyes went wide. "Does it open? What's inside?"

The boy tried. He pinched the little edge with his fingernails and pushed. His hands were shaking a little, whether from cold or nerves I couldn't tell. He turned it sideways, tried again near the seam. It didn't budge.

"It won't," he said. "I tried lots. It's stuck."

"Can I try?" Ethan asked, and then caught himself and looked at me. "Can I?"

I shook my head gently. "That's his, buddy. Let him show us."

The boy held the locket closer. Up close I could see fine scratches across the silver and a small dent on the back. Rust colored dirt was packed around the rim where it should have opened. Someone had worn this a long time without cleaning it. Someone had left it on a little kid and never taken it off to check.

A gust came down the sidewalk and both boys shivered. Ethan rubbed his arms. The other boy just hunched tighter in that thin t-shirt. I unzipped my tan utility jacket halfway, then stopped. I couldn't give him the jacket off my back with Ethan right there getting cold too, and I couldn't leave to buy something. I moved instead to block the wind with my body.

"Can I take a picture of it?" I asked. "Just so I remember exactly what it looks like. I won't touch it."

He hesitated, then nodded. He lifted the locket again and held still. I opened my camera, leaned in, and took two close shots. The silver caught the flat daylight. Then I stood and stepped back and took two more, wider — him on the cardboard, the big box beside him, the store doorway with the glass window of products behind him. Evidence that he was here, like this, at 8:47 on a normal morning while people bought coffee and kept walking.

My phone buzzed in my hand as I lowered it. Same unknown number. I thought my heart would stop. It was just the screen asking if I wanted to save to cloud. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

Ethan watched me put the phone away. "Are we in trouble?"

"No," I said quickly. Then, because he deserved better than that, "Somebody texted me and told me to leave. Told me to take you and go."

His mouth dropped a little. "Why?"

"I don't know."

The boy lowered the locket back against his shirt. "If you have to go, it's okay," he said. "I stay here anyway."

I looked at the message in my head again. Walk away with your son. Do not get involved. Whoever wrote that was counting on me being scared enough, busy enough, normal enough to obey.