I waited with Owen at the Police Station, bought him a snack from the vending machine. The police called around.
When the Child Welfare people came for him, I didn’t want to give him up but it was possible his parents had been in a car accident, or had not yet reported him missing.
Maybe they thought he was in bed, maybe he was with a babysitter who left him… everything was possible, so I said good bye and kissed him, then went home to Kelly.
Kelly had wondered where I was and I told him about finding Owen. Kelly wasn’t all that intense about it, and we soon turned the topic to something else.
The next day I contacted Child Welfare and learned that Owen was a foster child of someone who had abandoned him.