Every day at the shelter, six-year-old Mike, who didn’t know his parents had died, waited for them to come back.
One day, he noticed a poor teenage girl standing outside the fence, silently watching him.
He didn’t know it yet, but she wasn’t just watching him — she was WAITING for him.
Mike was only four when his life had shattered in ways no child should ever experience.
He had spent that day at the neighbor’s house, playing with blocks and eating peanut butter sandwiches, completely unaware that it would be the last normal day of his life.
When the crash happened, he wasn’t there to hear the screech of tires or the crumpling of metal. He didn’t see the flashing red and blue lights that lit up the dark street. He didn’t feel the weight of the world shifting beneath him when his parents were declared dead.
All he knew was that later that night, the neighbor — a kind but visibly shaken woman — took his small hand and said, “You’ll be staying with me tonight, okay, sweetheart?”
He’d nodded, clutching his stuffed elephant, Jumbo.
“Where are Mommy and Daddy?”
“They’ll be back soon,” she’d whispered, her voice trembling as she offered a silent apology he’d never hear.
“But I want them now,” Mike’s lower lip quivered. “They always tuck me in. Daddy does the funny voices for my bedtime story.”
The neighbor pulled him close, her tears threatening to fall.
“I know, sweetheart. I know.”
“Can you call them?” Mike asked, his small fingers gripping his elephant tighter.
The neighbor’s breath caught in her throat. “Not tonight, honey.
How about I read you a story instead?”
“No. I want Mommy and Daddy to come back for me,” Mike sobbed, his eager eyes glued to the front gate, as if willing them to appear.
But they didn’t come back. Not that night, not the next day… not ever.
Mike didn’t remember much from the days that followed, except that the neighbor’s house felt cold and strange.
People he didn’t know came and went, speaking in hushed tones and avoiding his wide, questioning eyes. And then, one day, a lady with soft brown curls and a kind smile arrived. Her name was Brenda, and she was the one who took him to the shelter.
Time fluttered by like leaves on the breeze, but Mike’s hope of seeing his parents again never dwindled.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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