It was raining heavily that night. That was all Rim Young could really remember, along with the last moments he had spent with his mother.
"You only need to wait for me. Can you do that?"
Rim Young didn't know what was happening. He was too young to understand why his mother was leaving him there or where she intended to go. All he could do was nod to everything she instructed him to do. She placed the umbrella in his hands, then crossed the road in front of him. Where she actually went, he had no idea.
He simply stood there and waited.
The rain continued pouring around him, drumming against the umbrella and soaking the darkness beyond its small shelter. Time passed slowly, but his mother still didn't return. Holding the umbrella for so long made his hand ache, yet he kept waiting exactly as she had told him to. He didn't move from that spot, believing that if he waited long enough, she would eventually come back for him.
But she never did.
