It was late summer 1980 in East Weymouth, Massachusetts. I was four years old, and my brother, Mike, was two. We lived at 37 Lorraine Street, our little ranch home in a small, family neighborhood where kids played freely, and there were no fences dividing the yards just the forest behind our home. Our backyard had an above-ground pool, and behind that was my sandbox—my kingdom. I spent most of my days there, digging and building, my silver and black German Shepherd, Tasha, always by my side. She was a year older than me and took it as her duty to watch over me, the first of the Cavallo babies she was born to protect.
That day, the sun was shining, the air thick with the scent of freshly cut grass and summer heat. My mom was outside with us, keeping an eye on Mike and me, when the phone rang.
“Matt, watch your brother while I go answer the phone. I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, hurrying inside.
I nodded, but I was four, deeply engrossed in my sandbox empire. Mike, on the other hand, had other plans. By the time my mom came back, he was gone.
My mom’s face paled as she scanned the yard. “Matt, where is Michael?” she asked frantically.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Tasha was still there, lying in the grass, ears perked up but calm. Neither of us had noticed Mike slip away. Just like that, he had vanished.
At that exact moment, my dad pulled into the driveway in his old pickup truck. My mom ran to him, panic in her voice. “Mike is missing! Mike is missing!”
Without hesitation, my dad threw the truck into reverse and sped down Lorraine Street, onto Pleasant Street, and straight to the Weymouth Police Station—a four-minute drive away. In his rush, he crashed into the bumper of a parked police car. Ignoring the damage, he ran inside, yelling, “My son is missing! Follow me!”
Every available Weymouth police officer dropped what they were doing and raced to their cruisers, following my dad back home. Meanwhile, my mom was calling every neighbor she could think of. Our neighborhood was close-knit, filled with young families. It wasn’t unusual for kids to wander from yard to yard, playing until dark. If Mike was anywhere nearby, someone had to have seen him.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Each minute stretched painfully long. My mom was inconsolable, blaming herself for answering the phone. Tasha, sensing the distress, had shifted from her relaxed position to high alert, standing guard by my sandbox as strangers in uniforms searched our home and yard.
Thirty minutes in, a call finally came.
A neighbor two streets over had spotted Mike—eating a grape popsicle in the backyard of Eddie Colleran’s house. The Collerans were throwing a birthday party for their child. Apparently, Mike had heard the music, wandered through a path in the forest to the house that was hosting the party, and blended right in. Since he was the same age as the other toddlers, the Collerans just assumed he was a guest.
Funny enough, this wasn’t the first time the Colleran and Cavallo families had a mix-up. My dad and Eddie Colleran had been switched at birth.
My grandmother, Sue, and Eddie’s mom had been hospital roommates. When the nurse brought her a newborn, my grandmother—usually quiet and stoic—took one look and firmly said, “This isn’t my baby.” The hospital corrected the mix-up, and life went on. Thirty years later, another mix-up, this time involving my little brother, had brought the families together once again.
Escorted by a police cruiser, my parents rushed to the Colleran house. And there was Mike, happily sucking on his popsicle, oblivious to the commotion he had caused. My mom scooped him up and hugged him tight. “Don’t you ever run away again. You scared me,” she whispered, holding back tears.
Mike just kept sucking on his popsicle.
Back at home, the tension melted into relief. The neighbors who had been searching slowly returned to their houses. The police officers, still shaking their heads at my dad’s grand entrance, drove off. My mom finally exhaled.
And me? I was still in my sandbox, Tasha lying beside me, oblivious to the adventure my brother had just lived. In my four-year-old world, nothing had changed. But for my parents, that day would be burned into memory forever—the day Mike disappeared, only to be found two streets over, enjoying a birthday party he hadn’t been invited to, with a popsicle in hand. Years later, they could laugh about it, but at the time, it was one of the most terrifying thirty minutes of their lives.