Stay With Me

                                                                    (A Short Story)

Magil shivered in the early morning darkness. He snuggled deeper into his damp sleeping bag, his toes numb from cold. After a moment, he skooched out of the bag, careful not to wake his mother who slept beside him. He reached for his boots. A sprinkle of rain dropped from an overhead pine branch and showered him. He grimaced as he shoved his feet into dank boots that heightened his urge to urinate. He hurried a short distance from his mother before relieving himself. He appreciated everything she had done for him. The least he could do was to show her respect.

“Parents like that,” he thought.

Instinctively, he jumped at the sounds of footsteps, and saw arcs of light flung back and forth, light that moved toward the place where his mother slept. He ducked under the low branches of a blue spruce. At nine years old he knew how to slip away from adults. Three men grabbed her, and lifted her to her feet. His heart pounded like a jack hammer, as the men questioned her. She looked around her, and smiled in his direction. He pulled back intuitively. She shrugged as the men took hold of her arms, and led her away.

His face wrenched in agony. He wanted to rescue her.

“Don't leave! Come back!” The words screamed in his heart.

But he couldn't move. He would never go back to that orphanage. Never. His eyebrows knotted. When he was there before, the older children ridiculed him. They beat him. Said he was mental! Stole his boots – better boots than what he wore now.

A sneer contorted his mouth as he remembered that two weeks later when he ran away, no one missed him. For three weeks! He knew that because his mother had told him.

And when he had found her, she hugged and kissed him, over the moon with happiness. And such a team they made. They could read each other's thoughts. She distracted vendors while he stole their goods, hiding smaller items under his jacket. Adults paid little attention to him. He was small. Wiry. Unnoticeable.

Now, he needed to find her again. And he would.

That afternoon he walked to the brownstone church on Newel Street, as he did every Sunday. Behind the church in front of a gray tombstone, he pulled a small bouquet from his jacket, and laid it down. The stone read. Sarah Mitkin, 1990-2010 died in childbirth, survived by her son, Magil.

As he walked back down Newel Street, he whispered,

“Where are you momma?”

He felt a kiss on his cheek. His eyes twinkled.