## The Man in the Parking Lot

“Dad!”

Daniel Bennett’s voice carried across the supermarket parking lot.

Several people turned.

Daniel didn’t notice.

He had been searching for almost forty minutes—inside the store, near the restrooms, beside the cart return, around the pharmacy next door.

Now he finally saw him.

Arthur Bennett stood near the far edge of the parking lot beneath a flickering lamp, one hand resting on a shopping cart that wasn’t his.

At seventy-eight, Arthur was still recognizable as the strong father Daniel remembered, but age had slowly folded his shoulders forward. His silver hair moved in the evening breeze.

He looked lost.

Daniel rushed toward him.

“Dad! Where have you been?! I’ve been looking everywhere!”

Arthur startled.

For a second, there was something in his eyes Daniel had never seen when he was younger.

Fear.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur whispered. “I couldn’t remember the way back.”

Daniel’s relief disappeared beneath frustration.

“You can’t keep doing this!”

Arthur lowered his eyes.

Daniel was breathing hard.

“Do you understand how dangerous this is? What if you’d walked into the road? What if somebody—”

“I know.”

“No, Dad. You don’t know. That’s the problem.”

Arthur said nothing.

Then he slowly raised his head.

“When you got lost,” he said quietly, “I was just happy I found you.”

Daniel froze.

“What?”

Arthur gave him a tired little smile.

“You were six.”

And suddenly, Daniel remembered the red storefront.

The rain.

And a frightened little boy waiting alone for his father.

That boy had been him.