“Is your son Dilan home?”
“Safe from what?” I asked.
“It’s just a formal call, Ma’am.” Then he hung up.
I stood there for a moment, phone still in my hand, trying to tell myself it was nothing. But the word “safe” kept circling in my head, refusing to settle. So I went upstairs to Dilan’s room to ask him what this was really about.
I stopped at the doorway. He was already asleep. I stood there for a second, watching him breathe, and couldn’t bring myself to wake him.
An hour later, the phone rang again. An elderly woman this time.
“Is Dilan home safe?” she asked before I even said hello.
“Safe from what?”
By then my nerves were stretched thin. “Would somebody please tell me what is going on?”
She went quiet, then said softly, “God bless that boy,” and hung up.
***
I couldn’t sleep. By midnight, fear was doing what it always does with too little information. Every silence started sounding suspicious. Every possible answer felt worse than the last.
