He traveled over a thousand kilometers in secret to see the sister he missed so much. He imagined her in a bright kitchen, smiling, surrounded by love. Instead, the sight that greeted him at her door almost broke him.
The bus ride felt longer than the miles on the map.
Ethan sat by the window, half-asleep, half-awake, watching the Iowa fields give way to highways, cities, and long stretches of empty road. His backpack—old but sturdy—rested heavy on his knees. Inside were small pieces of home: cookies baked by his mother’s shaky hands, packets of herbal tea she said would “help Lena sleep better,” and a pair of worn flip-flops his sister used to slip on every time she ran out to the yard.
Three years.
That’s how long it had been since he’d last hugged her.
Lena had followed her husband to a small town in Alabama, nearly 700 miles from the house where she and Ethan had shared a tiny bedroom and late-night whispers. The day she left, their father held her for a long time, their mother cried into her apron, and Ethan stood at the gate, watching the car disappear, trying to be strong.
In the beginning, everything seemed fine. Lena’s calls came often—warm, teasing, full of updates.
She sent money home, scolded Ethan through the phone for skipping lunch, reminded him to help their aging parents.
And then, slowly, the calls thinned out.
Once a week became once a month. Then the silence stretched for so long that the sound of their landline ringing became a memory.
At night, he would hear his mother sigh as she wiped the kitchen table for the third time.
“I hope your sister is okay,” she’d murmur. “It’s not like her to stay quiet.”
Ethan would nod, pretend not to worry, and lie awake staring at the ceiling.
Until one morning, he stopped pretending. He took leave from the factory, grabbed his savings, packed his bag, and headed to the bus station. He didn’t explain.
He just went.
After more than twenty hours and several transfers, he stepped off the bus into a hot, still Alabama afternoon. This town felt small and tired—cracked sidewalks, faded storefronts, and telephone wires sagging above. Following the address scribbled on a piece of paper, he walked past a gas station, a church, and an overgrown yard before finally stopping in front of a small house at the edge of town.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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