In the airplane restroom, I discovered a weeping young boy holding a paper bag, and he wasn’t listed among the passengers.

But it was the photographs that caught my attention.

They were old, worn at the edges, like they’d been held a thousand times. One was of a man and woman, smiling as they held a baby swaddled in a blue blanket. Another showed the same couple, now with a toddler—Ben—laughing as they swung him between them.

I felt my heart clench. “Are these your parents?”

His lip trembled as he nodded. “They went away. They didn’t come back.”

I felt a lump rise in my throat. “Where were you before you got on this plane, Ben?”

His eyes flicked to the floor. “At the airport. I was hiding. Then people started going inside, so… I followed them.”

I stared at him, realization crashing over me. He was a stowaway.