Flash

Second Mother

"Hey there, little man! Where do you think you're going?"

I was late for my dental appointment, but I had to stop. What was that stupid boy thinking, walking down the middle of the road like that? He could easily get run over by the next car that came along. He looked to be no more than six or seven years old. Didn't his mother teach him anything?

He completely ignored me. I was tempted to drive on, but I knew I would never have forgiven myself. I got out of the car and ran towards him, ready to scoop him up if I saw any traffic coming.

"Where are you going?" I asked. He said nothing, and just kept plodding along the centre line of the highway.

I put my hand on his shoulder and pulled him to a stop. "This is dangerous, you know."

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."

"My name is Anna. What's yours?"

"Charles. Everybody calls me Charlie, but I don't like it."

"Okay, Charles. Now that we know each other's names, we're not strangers any more. You can talk to me. What so you think you're doing?"

"I'm walking the line."

"Why?"

"I'm going to the city to find my Mom. It's her birthday."

"Come sit in my car," I said. "I'll drive you."

"I'm not supposed to get rides from strangers."

"We're not strangers, remember? It's a long way to the city. It will be dark before you can walk there."

It took a while to get his story out of him. He had no memory of his father. His mother had very little to give him except her love. Two years before, just before Charles' fourth birthday, she had died of a terrible chest infection. She was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery. Charles wanted to visit her on her special day. His foster parents were too busy to take him, so he set out on his own.

He refused to tell me his full name or where he lived until after I took him where he wanted to go. What else could I do? I thought of calling the police. But if I did, he would be whisked off to goodness knows where.  He would never have the chance to visit his mother on her birthday.

I shed a few tears as I watched him talking to the headstone. It was as if she was really there, answering him. My husband and children had been killed in a car accident three years ago, but I had no sense of connection to them. There was simply a huge gaping hole in my heart.

While Charles and I were walking back to the car, I took his hand.

"Mom says I need a friend," he said. "Will you be my friend?"

I was so choked up that I could barely answer. "I think we're friends already."

Charles turned out all right despite his difficult beginning. He did well at school and made many friends. He invited me to his wedding and asked me to be the godmother of his daughter. That day on the highway changed my life. Charles gave me something to live for.

Yesterday, I finally worked up enough courage to ask him the question that had been bugging me for all these years.

"Did you really hear your mother talking to you the day I took you to the cemetery?"

Charles smiled mysteriously. "I'll never tell."

"Come on -- I really want to know!"

"That was a long time ago. How do you expect me to remember?"

"If I heard my husband or children talking to me, even just one time, I would remember it for the rest of my life." I fumbled for a tissue in my pocket. There wasn't one, of course.

Charles sprang into action and fetched some toilet paper from the bathroom. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have teased you."

"You have no idea how much I have longed for a sign that they are still alive somewhere, reaching out to me," I sniffled. "Then I would know that I haven't lost them forever."

"I still carry my mother in my heart," Charles said. "I've never heard a disembodied voice from another world, but I've always felt that she was with me. Whenever I had a problem, I used to talk to her, and imagine what she would say. Maybe I made it up, but it was always good advice. She's the reason I worked hard at school and tried to be kind to everyone."

"Wow," I said. "I wish I had thought of doing that."

Charles put his arms around me and held me close. "The best advice she ever gave me was to ask you to be my friend. I know she sent you to me to be my second mother."