I saw a homeless man wearing my missing son’s jacket — and I decided to follow him. Almost a year ago, on a Monday morning, my 17-year-old son, Daniel, left for school and never came back. My son was always the one who could make everyone laugh. He was kind and sensitive. He would never even leave the house without telling me. That just wasn’t like Daniel. That same evening, I called the police. The officers said teenagers will be teenagers — that he would come back in a couple of days.

After two blocks, I realized something: the old man hadn’t paused once to ask people for spare change. He hadn’t stopped to eat the bun or drink the tea either. He was moving with purpose.

My gut instinct told me to stop trying to catch up to him, to follow him instead.

So that’s what I did.

I followed him all the way to the edge of the city.

He was moving with purpose.

He stopped outside an old, abandoned house. It was surrounded by an unkempt garden choked with weeds that merged seamlessly with the woods at the back. It looked like nobody had cared about it in a long time.

The old man knocked quietly on the door.

I moved closer. The old man turned at one point, but I ducked behind a tree before he spotted me.

I heard the door open.

“You said I should tell you if someone ever asked about the jacket…” the old man said.