“MOM… HE WAS IN YOUR BELLY WITH ME…” SAID THE BOY, POINTING AT THE CHILD FROM THE STREET
“Mom… he was in your belly with me,” Mason said with a certainty that didn’t fit in his five-year-old body, pointing toward the fountain in the main square of Sequoia Park Plaza.
Breanna Sloane felt the air clog in her chest. She squeezed her son’s little hand, as if the world could snatch him away in a single pull, and followed the direction of that tiny finger. There, among balloon vendors and the murmur of pigeons, a barefoot boy offered candies from a cardboard box. His shirt was stained, his shorts torn, and his skin sun-burnt… but what froze Breanna in place was not the clothes, nor the obvious poverty.
It was the face. Brown curls, the same shape of eyebrows, the same line of the nose, the same habit of biting his lower lip when concentrating. And on his chin, a small birthmark… identical to Mason’s.
“It’s him,” insisted Mason, tugging softly on her blouse. “The boy from my dreams. We play far away. Mom… he was with you… with me.”
Breanna swallowed hard. For a second, she felt time bend, pulling her back to a white room with lights on the ceiling and voices drifting away, as if speaking underwater. A fragmented memory, a strange sensation she had always pushed down. For years she’d told herself it was childbirth nerves, that the mind invents things. But now… now there were two children staring at each other like they had found each other after a lifetime apart.
“Mason, don’t say nonsense,” she muttered, trying to sound firm. She failed. Her voice broke. “We’re leaving.”
“No, Mom. I know him.”
Mason let go of her hand and ran. Breanna wanted to shout for him to come back, but the words stuck in her throat. The boy from the street lifted his gaze just as Mason arrived. For an instant, the two of them observed each other in silence, as if recognizing something no one else could see.
The barefoot boy extended a hand. Mason took it. And they smiled the same way, the same curve of the mouth, the same slight tilt of the head, like a reflection.
“Hi,” said the boy from the street, his voice soft, not matching the harshness of his life. “Do you dream about me too?”
“Yes,” Mason answered, thrilled. “Every day.”
Breanna approached slowly. Her legs felt weak, like she was walking on sand. She saw how the boys compared their hands, touched each other’s hair, laughed with a shared trust that cannot be learned in an afternoon.
“What’s your name?” Mason asked.
“Milo,” the boy answered, shrinking a little when he noticed Breanna. “And you?”
“Mason. Look… our names are almost the same.”
Breanna felt a punch in her stomach. She forced herself to breathe. “Excuse me, Milo…” she said carefully, as if stepping on thin ice. “Where are your parents?”
Milo lowered his gaze and pointed to a nearby bench. There, a thin woman of about fifty slept, hugging an old bag. Her clothes were dirty, her face weary, as if life had weighed more on her than it should.
“Aunt Delores takes care of me,” Milo murmured. “But sometimes she gets sick.”
Breanna pressed her lips together. Something inside her screamed this wasn’t a coincidence. But another part, the part that had survived postpartum depression, wanted to run. Hide the mystery. Return to the known life, even if it was built on unanswered questions.
“Mason,” she said, grabbing his hand tighter than she should. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Mason turned, eyes filling with tears, as if being ripped away from something that belonged to him. “I don’t want to leave. I want to stay with my brother.”
The word *brother* fell like a thunderclap. Mason had never asked for a sibling, never spoken of one… until now. Breanna felt everything she had fought to deny start to crack.
“He’s not your brother,” she blurted, too fast. “You don’t have any siblings.”
“Yes I do,” Mason sobbed. “I know I do. He talks to me every night.”
Milo stepped closer and touched his arm with a tenderness too rare for a child living on the streets. “Don’t cry… I don’t like it when we get separated either.”
Breanna lifted Mason in her arms, ignoring his protests, and hurried away. But even from a distance, she felt Milo’s gaze following them, and she saw a tear fall down his dirty cheek.
In the car, Mason repeated the same question like a hammer, over and over: “Why did you leave my brother alone, Mom? Why?”
Breanna Sloane felt the air clog in her chest. She squeezed her son’s little hand, as if the world could snatch him away in a single pull, and followed the direction of that tiny finger
The August sun felt like a warm hand pressed against the shoulders of everyone at Sequoia Park Plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Vendors called out about lemonade and kettle corn, a guitar player strummed near a bench, and tourists lifted their phones to photograph the bubbling fountain surrounded by climbing roses. It was the kind of place where ordinary afternoons stretched in golden laziness and nothing unexpected ever happened.
Or so Breanna Sloane had always believed. Breanna stood near a shaded bench, her five year old son Mason perched against her leg. They had come for snow cones and fresh air, a tiny escape from the pressure of bills and the late shifts she worked at the diner. Mason held his cherry snow cone like it was a priceless jewel, red syrup dripping down his wrist.
He stared toward the fountain and said, with a quiet intensity, “Mom. He is right there. The boy from my dreams.”
Breanna thought he meant one of the performers. She smiled gently and followed his gaze. “What boy, sweetheart. Someone you know from preschool.”
Mason shook his head. “No. He was in your tummy with me. I saw him before I was born.”
The words knocked something loose inside her, like a picture frame falling from a wall…
