Chapter 3
“Your dad didn’t die because of you at all,” those were the first words my mother uttered when she fully regained her memory.
I was still sitting on the bench with my knees scraped and my heart racing wildly because of the truck that had just nearly crushed us.
“Mother, what are you saying?” I gasped.
Mary held my face gently in her hands.
Her eyes had completely changed now.
It was no longer the insecure look of that lost woman who needed to ask me who appeared in each old photograph.
It was truly her.
It was my loving mom.
“You were only ten years old back then, and you were just a helpless child,” she said softly.
Then she remembered every single detail of that tragic day.
Twenty years ago, my father, Thomas, had picked me up from elementary school on a bright afternoon.
I was desperate to cross the busy avenue because I had seen my mom waiting for us on the other side of the street.
The pedestrian traffic light changed colors.
I excitedly moved forward onto the road.
However, a distracted driver completely ignored the red light and sped right toward me.
My father saw the oncoming car before I did.
He ran with all his speed.
He pushed me out of the way just in time.
I hit my head hard on the sidewalk and lost consciousness immediately.
He took the full impact of the speeding car.
He died before the ambulance could even arrive at the scene.
My mother had watched the entire horrific event happen right before her eyes.
For twenty years, I had replayed that terrifying scene in my head differently, fully convinced that my impatience had directly caused my father’s tragic death.
Mary wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly.
“Your father chose to save you because you were his precious daughter,” she comforted me, “and he would never have wanted you to use his love to punish yourself for the rest of your life.”
I cried heavily on her shoulder like I had not cried since I was a little child.
However, there was still something major that needed to be explained.
“And what about you?” I asked through my tears. “How did you end up living on the street?”
My mother closed her eyes as the painful memories kept coming back to her.
After my father’s death, she fell into a deep depression, though she still tried her best to continue working and taking care of me.
She was not at home on the night of the famous fire because I had gone to sleep at my aunt’s house while my mom was working the late night shift.
However, she had returned home much earlier than scheduled.
As she recalled, she found thick black smoke pouring out from the kitchen windows.
She ran inside the burning house because she thought she had left behind a special wooden box where she kept important documents, old photographs, and the few physical memories we had left of my father.
A sudden gas explosion threw her violently against the wall.
She somehow managed to escape through a back window, completely disoriented and suffering from several severe burns.
Then she walked aimlessly into the dark night.
A long-distance truck driver eventually found her lying unconscious near the highway leading out of town and took her to a small rural clinic.
She was not carrying any identification papers on her person.
When she finally woke up days later, she did not remember who she was at all.
She spent several days hospitalized there, but she eventually wandered away from the facility before anyone could officially identify her.
From that moment on, her life became a tragic chain of bad decisions, overwhelming fear, and total abandonment.
She survived by staying in temporary dormitories, crowded shelters, and taking occasional low-paying jobs.
She suffered around cold people who constantly took advantage of her vulnerable state.
She spent twenty long years moving endlessly from city to city without even knowing what she was searching for deep down inside.
Until she eventually returned to Phoenix, without understanding the force pulling her back.
“Perhaps something deep inside my soul knew you were still here,” she told me with a tearful smile.
I couldn’t stop looking at her face.
Twenty whole years had passed.
We had been living less than an hour apart for several seasons without ever knowing that we were still searching for each other in the dark.
When we finally got back home that evening, Lucas was pacing around the living room, feeling completely desperate about where we had gone.
When he saw us walk through the front door, he ran towards us immediately.
“What happened to you two?” he asked anxiously.
I could barely respond through my tears, “She returned.”
“Who returned?” Lucas asked, looking puzzled.
I looked proudly at my mother.
She smiled brightly and said, “Mary. Mary has finally returned.”
Lucas understood the reality instantly.
He stepped forward and hugged her as deeply as if she were his own biological mother.
During the following days, everything in our household changed completely.
Mary slowly began to recover tiny memories that would have seemed completely insignificant to anyone else.
She remembered that I hated cilantro in my food when I was a child.
She remembered the soft lullaby song she used to sing to me whenever I was sick in bed.
She remembered hiding shiny coins inside an old metal cookie tin to buy me new shoes at the beginning of every school year.
And through her recovery, I discovered something deeply painful about myself.
The arrogant woman who years ago had heartlessly judged those who slept on the cold street was actually the daughter of a woman who had survived precisely that way for two decades.
I began to feel immensely ashamed of many horrible things I had said in the past.
One morning soon after, I voluntarily went with Lucas to the community dining hall.
I didn’t wear any elegant designer clothes.
I didn’t bring any photographers along.
I didn’t post a single photo on social media.
I simply tied a clean apron around my waist and started serving hot beans, rice, and fresh stew to the people in line.
An elderly woman held out her plastic plate to me.
Her hair was visibly dirty and unwashed.
Instinctively, I remembered the cruel gesture I had made when I first saw my mother enter my living room weeks ago.
The memory hurt my heart deeply.
“Would you like some more rice?” I asked her with a genuine smile.
The woman smiled back at me kindly.
“Yes, my dear, if it’s possible,” she replied softly.
I served her a generous double portion right away.
Lucas looked at me proudly from the other side of the long serving table.
He said absolutely nothing to me.
It wasn’t necessary at all because his proud eyes said everything.
However, my mother still had one major outstanding debt of gratitude to pay.
One night during dinner, she suddenly left her spoon on the plate and looked up at us.
“I need to find someone very important,” she stated firmly.
“Who do you need to find, Mom?” I asked curiously.
“Teresa,” she answered softly.
I had no idea who she was talking about.
Mary explained that, for the past few years, a kind woman named Teresa had worked cleaning the public bathrooms at the central bus station.
She earned very little money for her hard work.
She lived alone in a tiny rented room with damp, moldy walls.
Sometimes she barely had enough money to buy food for herself.
And yet she still constantly helped Mary survive on the streets.
She regularly saved extra bread rolls for her.
She allowed Mary to sleep hidden for a few warm minutes in a small cleaning supply closet during freezing winter nights.
She would frequently bring her a cup of hot coffee to keep her warm.
And it was actually Teresa who had told Mary about the community dining hall where Lucas eventually met her.
“If she hadn’t urged me to go to that dining hall, I would never have met your husband,” my mother said emotionaly, “and I might still be sleeping outside on the pavement tonight.”
Lucas put down his fork immediately.
“Then let’s go find her right now,” he said without hesitation.
The very next day, we returned to the central bus station together.
I was feeling extremely nervous walking through the crowded terminal.
My mother, however, was not nervous at all.
She walked confidently through the long corridors, recognizing every single corner of that difficult life that I secretly wished I could erase from her past memory.
Suddenly she pointed her hand towards an older, gray-haired woman pushing a heavy yellow cleaning cart down the hallway.
“Teresa!” she shouted happily.
The woman raised her head in surprise.
She looked closely at my mother for several long seconds.
She didn’t recognize her at first because of her clean hair and nice clothes.
Mary started laughing warmly.
“What, you don’t recognize the dirty woman who used to beg you for hot coffee anymore?” she joked.
Teresa instantly dropped her mop onto the floor in utter shock.
“Hope?” she gasped.
She ran towards my mother as fast as she could.
They embraced tightly right in the middle of the busy hallway.
Teresa was crying tears of joy on my mother’s shoulder.
“I thought something terrible had happened to you,” Teresa wept, “I went looking everywhere for you for weeks.”
“Something wonderful happened to me,” Mom replied with tears in her eyes. “I found my lost daughter.”
Teresa turned her eyes and looked directly at me.
“Are you really her daughter?” she asked in disbelief.
I nodded my head gently with a warm smile.
The poor woman put her trembling hand over her mouth in complete shock.
Then she looked over at Lucas standing beside me.
“So the kind gentleman from the community dining hall is…” she trailed off.
“He is my husband,” I finished her sentence softly.
Teresa crossed herself devoutly.
May you like
“May the heavens bless you all,” she whispered in deep awe.
She told us that she had often imagined Mary finding a loving family again, but she had never expected anything as miraculous as this.
