“Sure, we’ll keep an eye on him,” they said. “Go ahead, take her in to the bathroom.”
Her tiny hand clutched mine, gritty with sand. Both monogrammed totes sat sentry next to the playground bench and the two mothers. The squeaks of the swing chains hung in the cold air, mingling with happy shrieks and sneakers squealing down plastic slides. It was the usual comforting cacophony of happy children and chatting mothers.
Silence greeted us in the school building, and I waited in the bathroom while A did her business. We washed our hands quickly in the freezing water that gushed too quickly from the tap, spattering our shirts.
Her tiny hand in mine was slippery, not quite dry from the rough brown paper towels. I clutched it until we got to the gate, and she slid away from me and ran to the sandbox.
Wiping my hands on my jeans, I noticed the playground had quieted. The swings hung empty. The air was still but for the murmur of the mothers’ voices.
I rejoined them and we talked, eyes roaming; lifeguards on land. Was that a flash of a green shirt? Was that his laugh?
“Where’s G?” I asked them.
“Oh, he was right here just a second ago….”
Three heads swiveled as one as I called his name.
“There he is,” one sad, as a blond head and green shirt appeared over the edge of a climbing wall.
Sun glinted on hair that was too dark and too long, on green that was a shade too green, and I remembered: G does not play on the climbing wall.
Too still, too sharp, too bright.
Sometimes, a mother knows.
I ran to look behind every tree, under every slide, around every corner.
“G!” I yelled. “G!”
The totes mocked me, side by side, as I grabbed A’s tiny hand, gritty again. My other hand groped beside me, a reflex, seeking her twin and finding thin air. The world was unbalanced, and as it began to whirl around us, I felt G in my arms as an infant. Downy tufts of hair, that sweet milky scent, his laughing gurgle.
Around us, four mothers raced in circles, each yelling for my son. Each getting only silence in return. One turned to run to the mostly empty parking lot, and as she did, I saw my own look of panic mirrored in her eyes.
A’s hand was my sea anchor, and I clutched it until I heard her, “Mommy, ow!” And then, she noticed her other half was gone. She began to look back and forth, frantic, like a spectator at Wimbledon on fast-forward. “MOMMY! Where’s my brother?”
She pulled her hand free of mine and raced the edge of the playground like a greyhound. “G! Where are you? G!”
Never apart. Two swaddled burrito shapes, nestled into one crib, faces turned to each other. Smiling toddlers always holding hands. Must kiss each other goodnight before every nap and every night. Two parts, but one whole.
One gaping hole.
One hole where I failed as a mother, where someone snatched my precious boy right off this safe haven of a playground, beneath the noses of two of my friends.
“We’ve got him!”
“He’s right here!”
My heart.
Exploded.
Because the first one to the boy in the green shirt was his twin sister.