shirt was plastered to him, and his lips were quivering.
“Eli,” I said, pulling him inside. “Where’s your umbrella, baby?”
He met my eyes, and my stomach clenched.
I prayed it was not the blue one. Please, not the blue one.
“It’s gone, Mom,” he whispered.
The blue umbrella had never been costly. It had a wooden handle, a sticky silver button, and Darren’s slanted handwriting written inside the strap because Eli used to misplace everything when he was small.
But that umbrella, he never misplaced.
Darren had bought it for him two months before the sickness took him from us. From then on, Eli brought it everywhere.
“What do you mean, gone?” I asked.
Eli gulped. “Sorry, Mom. I gave it to someone.”
“You gave it away? What about…”
His chin lowered.
For a brief moment,
