October 18th, 1981

Mrs. Lemay sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee, enjoying the momentary quiet of the house as she enjoyed her magazine. The rain pattered against the window, and she expected that in a week or two it would turn to snow with the falling temperatures. Today's preparations had gone uneventfully. she woke early to prepare breakfast for her husband and daughter while they got ready for work and school respectfully and saw them out the door on time. Andrew needed his rest, so they were careful to move quietly and not awake him, and he was still sleeping upstairs so she had this time to herself until the sounds of his crutch thumping around the floor upstairs cued her to heat up his breakfast.

What time was it anyway? Mrs. Lemay pushed herself back from the table and took her mug with her to the hall to check the grandfather clock. Already 9:00. Andrew must be very tired; he normally didn't sleep this late. She would have to bring it up to her husband when he returned home this evening. Andrew was making remarkable improvement but he still had a way to go before he would be totally healed. She quietly climbed the stairs to his room and knocked on the door.

"Andrew?" she asked.

There was no response. She carefully turned the knob and cracked the door open to peek in before frowning and throwing it open as the troubling realization hit her.

Andrew was gone.

His crutch was gone too, of course, and his bookbag. The bed was hastily made and when she moved to the dresser, she realized his few pairs of clothes were also missing. He couldn't be gone. She'd been awake all morning, before anyone else, and surely, she would have heard and seen him come downstairs. Wouldn't she?

She set down her now-empty cup of coffee on the dresser. "Andrew!" She shouted now, moving back out to the hallway and through the house, hoping that he had merely slipped past her and was now hiding out in some other part of their apartment. "Andrew!"

The parlor and kitchen and privy were all empty. She checked her room, even searching under the bed though she couldn't imagine why he would be hiding there. "Andrew, stop playing and come to breakfast!" Next, Clara's room, but to no avail. She stood at the top of the stair in baffled silence and returned to his room again. She stopped and did a full turn to search the room for anything else amiss, and this time, her eyes alighted on a small scrap of paper sitting on the end table. She rushed to read it.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lemay and Clara

I'm going to go look for my family. I know I can catch up to them, but there's no time to waste so I'm leaving tonight. If I can't find them, I'll be back right away. Don't worry about me! Thank you for everything. I'll never forget you.

Your friend,

Andrew Morris

Mrs. Lemay shook her head in disbelief and rushed to get ready. Silly, hopeful boy. She pulled on her shoes and coat and slipped the note into the pocket as she hurried down the stairs. She paused in the kitchen a moment to scribble a return note on the back of an envelope.

Andrew,

I dearly hope you're reading this before I return. I've gone to find Mr. Lemay to let him know where you've gone and to start a search for you. If you return before I do and find the house empty, please stay here and don't come looking for us again. I'll be home by the time Clara gets home from school.

Mrs. Lemay

She left it on the table, seized an umbrella from the rack at the door, and made her way downstairs to the road. She made sure to leave the door unlocked behind her, should Andrew return. She considered hailing a carriage to her husband's clinic. It would be faster, yes, and she would avoid the rain, but if Andrew were still in the area, she might miss him on the road on her way. How much nicer would it be for her to find Andrew first and not concern the others – yes, walking would be the better of the two options. She started down the street at a brisk pace, hurrying to keep the cold at bay.

How long ago did he leave? If it were anytime recent, he would still be nearby. The poor boy couldn't move very quickly, especially not in this sort of weather. She only prayed she could find him in time. He didn't leave any idea in his note of where he would be going or how he planned to find his family on the other side of the country. He had to be close. She squinted into the rain past her umbrella as she made her way to the clinic, searching the fuzzy figures of the street for Andrew's slight frame or the telltale look of his crutch.

She'd had no luck by the time she reached her destination and braced herself to break the news to her husband. The secretary greeted her pleasantly at the desk and went to fetch the doctor upon her urgent request. He emerged from the back rooms with a puzzled look. "Elizabeth, what's the matter?"

"Andrew's taken it upon himself to find his family. He's run away. Are you busy with clients now or can you help me find him? We can cover more ground if we split up," She explained breathlessly as she handed him the boy's note. He read it over once, then again before giving a long slow groan. He sighed and put it into his pocket before turning to his secretary to ask for his appointment list of the day. She rattled off the names and times, and both of their faces fell.

"I'll be busy until this afternoon but I can take up the hunt whenever I'm done with my day," Mr. Lemay offered. His voice was heavy with concern. "He can't be far. My worry is more for his health, not his safety. His leg still isn't healed and this cold and damp will set into his lungs if he doesn't get shelter and warmth soon. If he gets pneumonia, I don't know how much I'll be able to do to help him."

Mrs. Lemay nodded empathetically. "If he turned back, I left the front door open and a note on the table telling him to stay put," she explained, "but if he hasn't gotten over his silly idea yet, I'll start looking for him in the park. Since he's looking for his family, he may try to go to the nearest rail station in Manhattan. He'd have to walk north along Camden Plaza, and may have stopped at the park to rest, or get distracted."

"That's a good plan. If you find him, please bring him home and get him in bed immediately with extra blankets and some warm broth or tea." Mr. Lemay rubbed his temples in exasperation. Of all the ridiculous ideas. He couldn't blame the poor boy; he couldn't be angry with Andrew, but he already had a few ideas for the lecture we would give him whenever he was found.

"Yes, of course," Mrs. Lemay wrung her hands. "I only hope we can find him before Clara gets home from school. I'll need to be home to tell her the news." What would she tell Clara? Hopefully she wouldn't need to tell her anything. She would cross that bridge when she came to it.

"I'll be home at four o'clock. If you haven't found him by then, I'll go back out looking. We should cover north Brooklyn thoroughly first, before we try going across the river. I doubt he'd be able to reach Manhattan so soon."

"Thank you, I'll see you this afternoon," She started to walk to the door but stopped and turned back to her husband, the urgency of her earlier expression melted away to a motherly worry. "I feel sorry for him. It's hard for him to be separated from his family for so long but what a reckless idea. The streets are dangerous, he should know better than this."

Mr. Lemay gave a long sigh. "One would think. Good luck."

And with a kiss good bye, she left to continue with her search.

Andrew shivered. The rain soaked his clothes through to the skin and the cold damp sunk into his bones. His legs ached – both of them now, his right because it always hurt and his left from walking so far. His arm too, from holding his crutch, and even as he took another step he grimaced. He couldn't go any farther. As soon as he could find a place to sit down, he would be the happiest kid in the world.

His fantastic idea of the night before didn't seem so great now that he was stuck in the rain, but he had already come so far, all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge, in the dead of night, and he wasn't about to stop now. At least he wouldn't have to walk all the way to Santa Fe. His family was smart to move to a warmer place. Who would want to live in a place where the air hurt to breath? Not him. He'd be with them soon enough.

Now if only he could find the train station.

He considered turning back, and going back to the warm comfort of the Lemay's apartment and the orphanage, but that posed the same problem as getting to the train station. Andrew was lost, and he hadn't the slightest idea how to get back home. Did he overshoot the path when he was supposed to turn? Did he turn right to head uptown too soon? Or had he turned the wrong way? What if he was walking downtown now?

Andrew gritted his teeth and plowed ahead through the crowd. He could ask for directions, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself either. He stood out enough as it was on the streets with his crutch, and if he asked an adult how to get back to Brooklyn, they'd ask him where his parents were, and if he asked to go back to the orphanage? He wasn't an orphan. This was Manhattan, they wouldn't send him to the one that Mrs. Lemay worked at, no. They'd send him to something called the Refuge, and Andrew had heard enough of Mrs. Lemay's disparaging rants about that place to know that was somewhere he had NO desire to go.

He missed them. He left as soon as he heard them all go to sleep so they wouldn't try to stop him but now he regretted not saying goodbye. If he went back now, would they be mad at him? Andrew scrubbed at his eyes, unsure if his vision was blurring because of tears or the rain, and pressed on through the wall of people fighting for their place on the sidewalk. Someone shoved just a little too hard, the butt of Andrew's crutch slid off the pavement into a slushy puddle, and he stumbled to the ground with a cry as it flew out of his hands and skittered across the pavement, just out of reach.

Nobody stopped to help him, and he didn't try to stand up or crawl to his crutch. He was tired. So tired. So he sat there in the street, fighting back tears, and he decided that he-

Would not give up-

Not there.

He looked up and reached for his crutch, and there, standing a way off and stooping to pick it up, was another boy about his age. He was taller, with dark hair, wearing a newsboy's bag and cap just a little too big for him. He handed the crutch to Andrew with a smile.

"Well, you look like you could use a friend."

A/N: A cliffhanger! Next week we'll see who this newcomer is! Let me know what you think of this one, I know it's a bit sad but I enjoyed writing this connection scene. I didn't expect Mrs. Lemay to become such an important POV character when I started this story but I really like her, and I hope you do too. :)