Yesterday’s sign was a boy placing his hands in mine while I shopped for Kabir’s favorite toy. His mum rushed towards me, chagrined and apologetic.

“He thought you were his mum,” the shop attendants told me.

“Don’t scold the boy, he didn’t know,” they told her.

“You are both wearing the same clothes,” they told us.

We laughed. They laughed too but I don’t think they knew why we were laughing.

I think she was laughing out of relief, the kind you do with your hands placed on your chest after you catch something precious that you were about to break. She was laughing because I could have walked away, his hands in mine, and she could have run around, eyes red, voice low, then loud and pleading and praying and screaming. She could have cried every night for years, holding his favorite Spiderman shirt while her husband hugged and cried with her. Her husband would have moved out, years later, because he accepted his loss and his destiny and made peace with God. He passed his test. He was patient. Beautifully patient. He was a good Muslim and she was not.

I was laughing because this sign was as loud as Kabir’s toy car, the one that made blaring noises as it moved across the parlor and crawled under my bed. The one I hid and told him was broken because I wanted to sleep. This sign was telling me I would find Kabir, just like she found her son.

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Not all signs were that obvious. Some signs were as fleeting as a child on the bus smiling at me for a moment. Some signs were as common as seeing a boy wearing Kabir’s favorite color of shoes—green.

I saw a sign every day.

Every time I saw a sign, I would head to his favorite places; his favorite aisle at the mall, the one filled with rows of toy cars and guns and monster trucks. I used to walk over to the puzzle section and beckon to him to follow me, but he always insisted on a car; the zoo where he saw a lion for the first time and would proclaim to guests that the lion roared at him and he felt no fear. My brave, brave boy. For months after he disappeared, I pictured him telling me over and over again that he felt no fear as he ran from those who took him and found his way home.

Sometimes, I would go to the amusement park—the one he went to every Eid where he rode the roller coaster again and again. I would run to get his favorite ice cream so he would have it when he got back down. I guess that day I was a little late. Missed timing, they whispered to me. Bad mother, I know. Careless. Stupid.

While I headed to the mall and the park and the zoo and the police station, I strolled leisurely and peeked at children passing by to find eyes that look like mine. I’d listen for his giggle—the one he made when he licked ice cream or his high-pitched cry; the one I heard in my sleep, every night. But there were days I walked hurriedly so I could catch him there before he left.

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Today’s sign is finding his favorite Spiderman shirt hanging on my door. I do not know how it got there. He wore it the night before he disappeared and would not take it off.

“We don’t sleep in our day clothes, it is the rule,” I said and held my hands out beckoning for the shirt until he pulled it off, tears in his eyes. That night, I walked back to my room, a pep in my step. I was a good mother. Loving but stern.

I perform ablution and pray, and when my head touches the ground, I thank God for showing me another sign. I wait and wait, until my legs begin to shake, until something close to hope settles in my heart. Then I laugh, because laughter is joy and joy is hope. Hope means I believe Kabir will return to me. Hope is patience. A beautiful form of patience. I am the good Muslim.

Then I stand up and head out the door. Today is the day I will find him.