Honey runs to the mudroom and unlocks the door that leads into the garage. “Aaron? Aaron?!” I lean around her to see. Bikes and scooters and pogo sticks and balls and sleds and hockey sticks are strewn everywhere. Folding tables and chairs are stacked precariously against the walls. Hoses snake across the grease-spotted floor. There is no room for a car to park here. And there’s nowhere for a small six-year-old to hide either. My eyes land on the button for the automatic garage door opener.

“Do you think he could have opened the garage and gotten out?” I say.

“No!” Honey says, pushing me aside a bit. “It’s closed, and he wouldn’t have been able to reach the button by the door to do that.”

“He can climb anything,” I say. It wasn’t such a stupid idea, was it?

She takes a breath. “Milla, you check all the other doors. Make sure they’re all still locked. I’ll start looking upstairs!” She flies up the winding main staircase two steps at a time, and I hear her banging the bedroom doors open. I run back to the living room and circle behind the couches, realizing suddenly that one of the glass cabinet doors is open. I hurry closer, registering a porcelain clockmaker on the carpet and that the lady with the balloons is missing. I have a glimmer of realization of what might have happened, but I don’t stop to pick the clockmaker up. I tear through the dining room, the kitchen, and then the den. That’s when I spot the stick that keeps the sliding door to the backyard in place. It is pulled up, and a draft of winter air blows in from a small crack where the door hasn’t been slid shut all the way.

“Honey!” I shout. “Come quick!”

She is at my side in a second and the next second running out into the freezing day in her slippers.

“Aaron! AARON!” she shouts. Her voice pierces the thin air. “AARON, WHERE ARE YOU?” She runs across the lawn until she reaches the wooden fence that separates their yard from the park on the other side. The park is as big as several blocks, and the playground part is sheer across the other end, near shul. She looks up over the fence and pounds her fist against the wooden slats. “AARON?” she screams.

She runs to the wooden gate, but it’s still latched. She looks at it, trying to determine if Aaron could have climbed the fence anyway, and that’s when we hear it. A very faint humming. The cereal jingle.

“Aaron?” Honey shouts.

I realize there are light footprints in the snow, different from Honey’s frantic trampled route. And a trail of ruby-colored drips.

“Honey, there,” I say, pointing up. Aaron is sitting on a branch of the big maple tree that is a fixture of the Wines’ backyard and a nuisance to any game. The leaves are all fallen, and Aaron in his thin orange T-shirt stands out clearly against the gray sky. It looks like it is going to snow again. I see Aaron’s toes curling against the branch and realize a second later that his feet are bare. He is grasping something in his hand.