Whatever Became of the Kitten?

I am in a community where we have a small group of stray cats. They are all grown and related. One person is kind enough to provide cat food for them everyday. Because of this, food never seems to be an issue and they look well fed. Over time, they have had kittens. Some of us saw to getting all of them neutered and spayed. As a result, the procreation issue is solved. They can't have kittens anymore.

BEFORE they were all fixed and were having litters, the occasional kitten, I was told,  would get away. I only saw two. One was crying and scared. I took him in and he has a home with me. The other, I caught and gave some food. That day, one of the neighbors talked me into putting him back with his mother who was still with another kitten. I went along with it because I knew the others were fed and fine. Also, I could not take him, and the only other option was a kill rescue. I struggled with it, but went ahead and allowed him to go back with his mother.

After all this happened, both kittens, eventually, disappeared. Because of this, I have always wished I had never put him back and wondered what happened. Could his mother have purposely abandoned him both times? If so, why would she do that? It just seems odd that he would get away from her twice and later it would be both in her litter. Do mother cats try to drop their kittens, off, eventually, to fend for themselves?

Maybe someone else took the kittens. I would like to think of that then anything sinister.

At a certain age, yes, the mother encourages them to go off on their own. How old were they when they disappeared? But if they were friendly, yes, perhaps someone adopted them. Hopefully.

I don't think anything sinister happened because everything has been fine with the community cats, overall. I just couldn't figure out if she would abandon them on purpose or if she was losing them because they were active and mobile kittens. I just wondered if the cat mama was overestimating their abilities. They were awfully young to let go. It was like Mama cat had no common kitty sense.

To me, they were about six weeks old. Maybe seven. Poor things. I don't see how Mama cat thought they could make it. I wish I had kept it. This was almost two years ago and I always regret not taking it. Mama cat must not have had good cat common sense.