“You can keep playing outside while I make the Jello, but you have to stay on the porch, okay?” The three-year-old’s face broke into a wide grin as he nodded. It wasn’t fair for a kid to have such cute dimples.

Kelsey went inside and set a kettle on the stove. She took a quick peek at the front window and saw her son pushing a rock across the porch rail like a race car. It’s fine, she thought. He’s fine. It’s good for both of us to practice a little independence.

Moments later the kettle whistled. She turned off the stove, poured the boiling water into the glass dish with the gelatin mix, began stirring absentmindedly until another tone caught her attention.

A car horn.

Panic rising in her chest, Kelsey ran to the front door, terrified of what she would find outside. A car was stopped right in front of their house. The driver was standing outside the vehicle, looking at something in the street.

Her son. Where was her son?

A dark shape on the ground shifted.

“Mommy?”

A small scream. Kelsey’s son stood beside her on the porch.

“Jello time, mommy?”

Kelsey sniffled, “Not yet, baby.”

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox
Image by Lynn Greyling from Pixabay