Neglect

No one noticed, which should be damn-well illegal. No one payed attention, which is something that a child should never endure. No one remembered, which no kid should ever be the victim of.

No one noticed that there was an extra kid on the bus.

No one payed attention to the lonely child in the back.

No one remembered to do a headcount to make sure all the little people were on the bus.

Or that there was one too many.

When the buses pulled away from the parking lot, leaving the group of many children and few adults to wait for the parents to swing by in their cars and leave with their respective child.

What no one noticed, payed attention to or remembered, was that little Mikey had only one brother.

Only Donna noticed, naturally, since she was the last to swing by in her car.

“Who is this?” she asked the last adult who had stayed behind with the two young boys, waiting for their parents.

“Your children,” the man answered as the sun burned his bald spot.

“Mikey is my son, yes, but this boy must be new. I haven't seen him here before,” Donna said, getting out of her car and walking over to place a soft, caring, motherly hand on Mikey's head.

It wasn't until then that the man – the adult trusted with the responsibility of exactly 23 5-year-olds – looked down at the small boy with wild, brown hair and innocent golden-brown eyes and realized he hadn't seen him before either.

Educated in pedagogy with 16 years experience as an educator, the man used the best of his skills, crouched down and leveled himself with the little boy. He stared into the innocent and confused eyes that didn't leave his for a second.

“Where did you come from, little buddy?” The man considered taking the small boy's hand, but decided against it considering he was a complete stranger to the youngster and his hands were extremely sweaty after standing in the burning heat for half an hour.

“My mom's vagina!” the boy answered proudly, shooting his small chest out and grinning widely, all of his pearly whites shimmering in the bright summer sun.

While Donna tried to hold back a laugh and settled for a hand-muffled giggle, the man sighed loudly.

“What's a vagina, mommy?” Mikey asked loudly.

“You'll know well enough one day, Mikey,” Donna answered her son, somehow knowing her words were nothing but the truth.

Mikey just shrugged, before he stuck his hand out towards the brown-haired boy who knew words he didn't.

“Hi, I'm Mikey. This is my mom. Where is yours?” This is when the negligence of the responsible adults truly showed itself, and in the worst way possible.

For some, the worst pain is that of themselves.

For Donna, it was the pain on the little boy's face. Tears had yet to roll quietly down his cheeks when Donna selflessly turned to Mikey and asked:

“Mikey. Wouldn't it be fun if your new friend came home with us and had dinner? We're having lasagna.”

Mikey's face immediately lit up, and even though the boys had only just met, Mikey made no hesitation in asking the unknown boy if he liked lasagna and comic books.

The boy's face became less sad, but still wore a clear sign of fear, loneliness and bewilderedness.

A slight movement of the boy's head signaled a yes, and while the responsible adult and Donna exchanged information and agreed on a strategy to find the boy's mother, Mikey showed his new friend how to open the door to the back seat and fasten the seat belts.

“What is your name?” Mikey asked while he waited impatiently for his mom to quit being mad at the man and drive them home to the lasagna. It had been a very long day for Mikey who usually spent his afternoons with his older brother when said person wasn't in school.

“Frank,” the boy answered carefully as he fiddled with his fingers in his lap. The car seat was far too big for his small frame, but then again, it wasn't adjusted to him.

The sadness once again welled up in Frank. He thought of his mom and what she was doing. He thought of his chair at the dining table back home. He thought of his warm bed and his spider-man pajamas that was lying on it back home.

“Mom, Frank is hungry,” Mikey told his mom pleadingly when she came back to talk to Frank, naively taking Frank's sad expression as a sign of hunger.

“Frank?” Donna asked surprised, learning the young boy's name for the first time.

Frank, thinking he was about to receive the earful he thought he so rightfully deserved for not being home, turned to face Donna.

Donna's heart nearly broke at the sight of two of the saddest eyes she'd ever seen in her 37 years of life.

She quickly smiled in attempt to rid Frank of, if not all, then at least some of the sadness that edged every feature of the small, scared boy.

“What is your last name?”

Frank's expression turned from sadness to concentration, turning his head to stare intensely at the passenger seat in front of him. He furrowed his eyebrows and frowned deeply as he racked in brain, trying to remember what the nice people at the post office and at the police station always calls his mom.

“I,” Frank said, trying to remember by thinking out loud.
“I,” Frank repeated, dragging out the lower note of the short word.

To Donna, the repeated pronoun was a sign of hesitation, and in desperate need not to pressure the boy more than absolutely necessary in this stressful, frightening and unfamiliar situation she interrupted Frank's thoughts.

“That's alright, Frank. I don't need to know right now. All I need to know is whether you like milk or water to drink for dinner,” she said quickly.

“Yay!” Mikey exclaimed, excited about getting home.

A small smile spread on Frank's lips, and when Donna smiled back encouragingly, the smile grew.

“Milk, please.”

------

At the Way household, dinner is not much of a struggle. Donna cooks it, the boys eat it. There was a bit of trouble when Frank first came and sat at the dining table, since Gerard has never been the most acceptant towards new people, but when the lasagna was served, all initial hostility was eliminated and the food brought the family together like it always has.

As all the Ways sit down around the table once again after a year of the 3 youngest being away, the oldest of the youngest remembers the first dinner of this kind – with Frank at the table.

Back then, he was just a young stranger, but now he's a best friend of both brothers and the lover of one.

When Frank notices the nostalgic smile on his closest friend's face, he smiles back – a knowing smile that tells his lover that he knows just what images are running through his head. The opposite images start running through his own head – the images from the other side of the table.

As the two lovers stare into each others eyes, they see the little boys they were when they first met. It's a long time ago, but a long time isn't enough for them – not yet. More images will fill their heads with time, and they can't wait for that time to come and go.

Nothing is ever so bad that it isn't good for something – or someone.