I drove straight to Maya’s house.
A man answered the door.
“That was her last day here.”
“Can I please see Maya? She was with my son the day he went missing. I need to know if he said anything to her.”
He frowned at me for a long moment. Then something in his face seemed to close off.
“Maya isn’t here. She’s living with her grandparents for a while.” He started to close the door, then paused. “I’ll ask her if she knows anything, okay?”
I stood there, unsure what to say, some instinct telling me to push harder — but I didn’t know how.
Then he closed the door.
Something in his face seemed to close off.
***
The weeks that followed were the worst of my life.
We put up flyers and posted on every local Facebook group and community board we could find.
The police searched too, but as the months went by, the search slowed down. Eventually, everyone started calling Daniel a runaway.
I knew my son. Daniel wasn’t the kind of boy who just vanished without a word.
And I would never stop looking for him, no matter how long it took.
Everyone started calling Daniel a runaway.
***
Almost a year later, I was in another city for a business meeting. I’d eventually forced myself back into some facsimile of normal life — work, grocery shopping, phone calls with my sister on Sunday evenings.
