#3

Facebook.
She had found him on Facebook, or rather he had found her. Now here she was sitting in a coffee shop pretending to do a crossword puzzle for the past 20 minutes, waiting.

Why had she even gotten onto Facebook anyway? "Come on mom, it'll be fun", her son had said, "we can be friends". Oh, she had given him such a look, but then he flashed that smile and she became his "friend". She was surprised at how many "friends" her son had, and even more surprised at how many of them were friends with their parents. One of her son's friends contacted her after she had been online and asked her for the recipe for those "lemon cookie things" that he had at her house once, he had never forgotten them. She didn't remember the boy or the cookies and there was a good chance they had probably come out of a box, but it was sweet anyway. Eventually, she knew more about what her son was up to than when he had been living at home and she had her own slew of friends. It seemed like everyone was on Facebook.

"I can't believe you are on Facebook. I have thought about you so many times and wondered what happened to you." came the message with the Friend Request. Thank goodness no one was there to see her grinning like a schoolgirl with a crush at the computer screen. He had thought about her, he had found her, she pressed accept without thinking. Was the world so much easier now. She started to write to tell him, but his e-mail arrived first asking her to meet him at Cafe Amelie tomorrow for lunch. She focused back on the entrance and the street around it. She knew she would recognize him, even if he never looked her way. She could remember how he walked, the way he moved, but of course she would be sure if she saw him smile. She had seen that smile every day for the past 20 years. Well almost every day, up until her son moved on to campus last year.

There he was walking into the Cafe.

Quickly she got up and began to walk across the street. Finally after all this time she could tell him about how that summer, that vacation, that one night had changed everything. He could tell her why her dad couldn't find him when he looked, why his family had never come back to the lake. It was OK, she hadn't been alone, her family had had taken care of them both, but she always felt bad that he didn't know about their son. She walked up to the entrance of the cafe and could see him seated. She only saw his profile, but his face gave her all the answers she needed. He had always known.