A Barefoot Boy On A Manhattan Sidewalk Held Out A Locket Engraved To Our Twin Sons And I Had Only Ever Had One

My name is Elaine Verrick and for eight years I believed I had buried a child I never saw. There was no grave, no body, no photograph, and no death certificate, and I never once asked why, because grief does not ask questions in the first year and pride will not let you ask them in the seventh. On a cold Tuesday in March my son stopped in the middle of a Manhattan sidewalk, pointed at a barefoot boy under a lamp post, and said the thing that took the whole thing apart in four words. This is all of it, chapter by chapter, from a locket in a stranger's hand to two names printed on one page.