“Rusty might bring friends.”
Theo grinned, eyes sparkling. “You’re the best, Mom.”
She saw Theo kneeling there with Rusty’s head resting in his lap. The late afternoon sun lit them up in this golden glow. She took a picture and posted it on Facebook.
Her caption read: “Whoever this kid is, he has more kindness than most adults I know.”
By morning, the photo had gone viral. Thousands of shares. Comments from all over.
People called him “The Kindest Boy.” Others said things like “Faith in humanity restored!” or “Find this kid — I want to send him something!”
The whole town was buzzing. At the diner, folks pulled out their phones and showed me the picture without realizing who the boy was. “That’s your son?” they asked when I finally said something.
“You must be so proud.”
And I was. God, I was. But Theo?
He didn’t seem to care about the attention. When I told him about the post, he smiled and shook his head. “Rusty doesn’t have Facebook, Mom,” he said.
A few days later, I left work early again. I wanted to walk home with him, maybe grab a milkshake on the way, and talk about the photo. He’d barely said anything about it since.
But when I turned the corner near the alley, I saw something that made me stop in my tracks. Parked near the broken-down fence was a shiny red SUV. It was new, polished, and completely out of place against the backdrop of cracked pavement and peeling paint.
And there, standing beside it, was a man in a gray suit. He was tall, maybe in his early 60s, with neatly combed white hair and the kind of posture that said he didn’t often have to explain himself. His hands were in his pockets, but I could see the tension in the way he stood, eyes fixed on Theo and Rusty.
My heart dropped. Every instinct in me went straight to high alert. I stepped off the sidewalk quickly and crossed the street, my boots crunching gravel as I hurried toward them.
I didn’t care who he was. No one stared at my son like that without an explanation. The man noticed me coming.Continue reading…
