While You Walked By by Regina Felty

Author:Regina Felty [Felty, Regina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-24T05:00:00+00:00

Ben had been looking for his umbrella all morning when he remembered that he’d last seen it in the trunk of his car. The first thing he noticed, though, when he opened the trunk wasn’t his umbrella. It was the green backpack. Ben stared down at the crumpled backpack and swallowed a lump in his throat. Aden’s backpack.

Ben had forgotten that he’d thrown the backpack and Aden’s tattered sleeping bag into his trunk when he realized they’d been left behind the night Aden had been picked up.

Picked up, he thought with bitterness, more like practically dragged by that cop to the squad car.

The cop had locked Aden in the backseat of his car and come back over to inform Ben that he would drop by the next day to take a statement from him. Ben couldn’t remember if he had even answered the man. Mia had slipped back inside after she’d walked out and seen Aden being taken away.

Everything was a blur from that night. Ben remembered sitting on the porch steps for over an hour with his head in his hands, too distraught to move. He thought Mia had checked on him once, but she didn’t disturb him.

He had been meaning to call Mrs. Anderson and ask her what to do with Aden’s things but forgot about them being in his trunk. What he had really wanted to do was call to check up on Aden and see how he was doing. He worried every day about how the boy was getting along and where they had sent him. Did they find his mother?

Ben didn’t open the backpack—it felt too personal. He felt like he would be invading what little privacy the boy had. He mulled over how he could return Aden’s meager belongings to him. Having them back might bring a small measure of comfort to the boy.

When Mrs. Anderson dropped by Angelo’s a few days later to ask Ben a few more questions, he hurried her to the back office where they could talk privately.

“How’s the boy?” Ben asked as he pushed the door closed.

Mrs. Anderson lowered herself onto the edge of Eddie’s rolling desk chair.

“He’s doing as well as can be expected right now, which is more than I can say about my end,” she said, releasing a heavy sigh.

“We’re having a hard time locating Aden’s family,” she told him. “I was hoping you might remember anything else that Aden shared with you that might be helpful in any way. I can’t get him to open up to me. He’s either hiding something or he just doesn’t have any information to share.”

Ben stood and fiddled with a pen from the desk while he tried to think, but was already shaking his head before he even answered.

“Well, Mrs. Anderson, Aden never shared much with me neither about his life before. I honestly don’t believe there was much to tell anyway,” Ben said. “I only heard him talk a little bit about his momma and about them livin’ in an upstairs apartment or something.

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