The boy had the same narrow chin. The same shaped nose. Even the same serious crease between his eyebrows.
She approached carefully.
“Hi, sweetheart. What’s your name?”
“Adrian,” the boy answered quietly.
The voice. The eyes.
“Do you live around here?”
“Behind the flea market. With my mom, Ms. Ramona.”
Ethan stepped closer to Adrian and held up his hand.
“You have this too,” he said.
Adrian slowly raised his right hand.
On his middle finger was a small crescent-shaped scar.
Identical to Ethan’s.
Danielle’s knees almost buckled. Suddenly, flashes came back to her — bright hospital lights, the sharp smell of antiseptic, a doctor’s tense face, then darkness. She had been under anesthesia for twelve hours after an emergency C-section.
“Soph—” she caught herself. “Ethan. We’re going home.”
But in the car, Ethan stared out the window.
“He remembers too,” he said softly. “We were in a white place. He told me, ‘See you on the other side.’”
That night, as she tucked him in, Ethan asked, “Mom, why did my brother stay behind?”
Danielle’s heart pounded.
“You don’t have a brother, baby.”
“Yes I do. He was scared of the dark. I remember.”
After he fell asleep, Danielle sat on the bedroom floor, shaking.