Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 46

            He looks down at the tiles on the ground still, but nods.

            Then he looks up, as though a sound in the unending ruckus of Grand Central have caught his ears.

            I follow his eyes and am a little taken aback. I’d been looking for it, but I don’t think it’s a sensation I’ll ever be used to.

            I’m walking, well, toddling around the station concourse. I’m wearing the I heart NY T-Shirt my parents still kept upstairs.

            I’m lost. The way I look around, up at the ceiling, at any couple who passes me, tells me that somehow, my parents have let me get away from them.

            I don’t remember the incident at all, but the look on my face tells it all. Confused, beginning to get upset. I can see in my face that I think they’ve left me here.

            Yates sees me too. ‘Someone’s lost that boy. Can we help him?’

            I shake my head. I don’t know how much Yates understands in this state. Telling him the little boy is me in my memories might only scare him.

            ‘His mum and dad will find him in a minute,’ I reassure. ‘Just watch.’

            It’s hard to watch myself so scared. I want to help myself but I know it’s impossible.

            ‘Every one feels alone sometimes you see,’ I say. I see my mum and dad in the distance, worried sick. They’re coming this way. It’s only a matter of time. The tears are coming. My lips are quivering, a sure sign of waterworks.

            ‘Not all the time though,’ replies Yates. I burst into tears, a child’s desperate cry filling the hall. My mum breaks into a run, leaving my dad with the pram. ‘See his mum’s found him now. And I bet his dad doesn’t get his belt and…’

            Tears fall down his red cheeks again. I reach out and put my arm around his shoulders. He moves a little closer to me.

            ‘No,’ I say. ‘Some people are the worst people imaginable, but sometimes they leave us behind and we can move on with our lives. We don’t stay stuck in the same place forever, because that’s how the bad people find us again. Even if we never see them.’

            He looks up at me. ‘Can we go home?’ he asks.

            ‘Yes,’ I say, smiling. ‘Take my hand.’

            Before a second travels by, I’m sitting in Yates’s kitchen again.