THE BOY ON THE PARK BENCH
I wasn’t supposed to cry that night. At least, that’s what I told myself as I sat on the old park bench overlooking the frozen lake — the same bench I had sat on as a boy, the same one where I had once waited for a mother who never returned. Winter always sharpened memory into something sharper than grief.
And grief, when sharpened, becomes a habit. I thought I was alone — until I heard a small voice. “Don’t cry, Mister.”
I turned.
A little boy stood a few feet away, cheeks pink from the cold, gloves mismatched, eyes too honest for his age. He pointed at me seriously. “You can borrow my mom.”
Behind him, a woman froze mid-step — his mother.
Warm brown eyes, quiet strength wrapped in a worn coat, a smile trying to apologize for the child beside her. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “He… sees things.”
She reached into her bag and held out a cookie wrapped in waxed paper.
“Merry Christmas.”
Her fingers brushed mine — a small electric mercy. I whispered, “Thank you,” because it was the only thing I could manage. The boy nodded approvingly.
“Eat the whole thing. It helps.”
They walked away. I sat staring at the crushed napkin in my gloved hand, unable to move, unable to leave the orbit of that small, uninvited kindness.
So I didn’t. I followed the glow that seemed to follow them. And that’s how I stepped into the light I didn’t know I needed.
THE CAFÉ WITH GOLDEN WINDOWS
The café looked like a lantern in the snow — warm yellow windows glowing against winter’s grey. Inside, cinnamon hung in the air. Jaime — that was the boy’s name — told stories about candy canes and paper stars while his mother poured cocoa into small cups from a thermos she’d carried.
She pushed one cup toward me. “Jaime is terrible at ignoring sad people. He gets that from me.”
Her voice was soft but honest, with no performance under it.
“You look nicer when you smile,” Jaime added. So I smiled. And something brittle inside me cracked — but not in the breaking way, in the healing way.
We talked about nothing important:
Paper stars. Snowy sidewalks. Small joys that were easy to overlook.
She never asked what I did for a living or why my eyes were red. She asked if I liked cinnamon. It was the first time in a long time someone cared about anything beyond the image of me.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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