That day I was on my way home from a business trip. It was cloudy, the train swayed gently, and the carriage was half empty. I was sitting by the window, looking at the gray sky, thinking about how fast life flies by, when someone sat down next to me.
I turned — it was a boy, about eight years old. Alone. No parents, no suitcase, just a backpack on his lap.
— Hi. Who are you with?
He shrugged.
— I’m going to Grandma’s. Mom told me to wait for her… and then she left.
— When was that?
— An hour… two hours ago. I got on the train like she told me. But she never came back.
There were no tears in his eyes. Just exhaustion. As if he knew this would happen.
I felt a chill right away. A boy traveling alone to another city, and his mother had vanished…
I immediately called the conductor. He looked at the boy, then at me — and suddenly turned pale.
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— You again? Your mother still hasn’t come back?
The boy didn’t answer. I decided to ask the conductor what was going on.
— This boy… he’s been riding the trains for two days now, saying his mom will be back soon, but I’ve never seen her. I’m calling the police at the next stop.
It turned out that the mother had left him at the station and disappeared. Later it was revealed that she had fled from an abusive husband — the boy’s father — and had wanted to hide her son at his grandmother’s.
But she couldn’t go through with it — she panicked and vanished, just placing her son on the train without thinking about what would happen to him.
We found the grandmother. She came and hugged the boy through tears.
And I… I stayed with him the whole time so he wouldn’t be alone.
Almost a year has passed since that incident, and the boy and I still talk often. His mother is still missing — without a trace.
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