My son left his lunch money on the table before disappearing

Dear Delyara, My son has been missing for eleven days. He is seventeen. The police tell us teenagers leave voluntarily more often than parents imagine. They ask about arguments, relationships, drugs, secret accounts. I answer everything. What keeps breaking me is the five-dollar bill on the kitchen table. I had left it there for his school lunch. He did not take it. His backpack is gone. His jacket is gone. His charger is gone. The lunch money stayed. Every morning, I walk past it. My husband tried to move it yesterday because he said I am turning ordinary things into signs. I shouted at him so loudly our neighbor knocked. Maybe he is right. Five dollars proves nothing. It does not tell me whether our son planned to leave, whether someone hurt him, whether he is warm, whether he is angry enough not to call. Still, I cannot spend it. The bill had one job that morning: feed my child. Until he comes home, I need it to remain unfinished. The police have his photograph. Social media has his photograph. I have five dollars waiting beside the fruit bowl because motherhood has become the stupidest form of bargaining: if I leave his lunch money where he expects it, perhaps the day has not completely moved on without him.