I didn’t sleep that night. I left the bear on the kitchen table, its single eye catching the hallway light whenever I passed. Every time the house creaked, I expected that broken voice to rasp my son’s name again. By morning, fear had hardened into something else: responsibility. Someone had buried this toy like a gravestone, and ignoring that felt worse than keeping it.
At the police station, the officer’s expression shifted the instant the recorder inside the bear crackled to life. They took it gently, like evidence, like a body. Weeks later, I learned a boy had gone missing years before, last seen not far from our walking route. His mother came to thank us, clutching a faded photo of her son holding the same bear. I’d thought our walks were about surviving my own loss. I never imagined they’d help another parent face hers.
