The Boy at the Bus Stop

I was sixteen when I met him.

He was sitting alone at a bus stop.

He looked about eight.

He asked me the time.

I told him.

Then he asked:

"Do you think people can find each other again?"

I laughed.

"I guess."

He smiled.

"My mom says they can."

The bus arrived.

He got on.

I never saw him again.

Twenty years later, I was cleaning out an old box.

Inside was a photograph.

It showed me at sixteen.

Standing at the same bus stop.

I had completely forgotten about the photograph.

But behind me stood the boy.

I looked closer.

He wasn't a stranger.

He was my younger brother.

The brother I had never met.

My mother had given him up for adoption before I was born.

I had discovered the photograph years before knowing the truth.

I contacted my mother.

She finally told me everything.

The boy had been visiting the city with his adoptive parents.

He had apparently seen me and recognized me from a photograph his adoptive family had.

I never knew.

He did.

And somehow, twenty years later, we finally found each other.