Every morning, my mom would drive me to the park before school, always saying the quiet helped clear her mind. Years later, I learned the truth. My aunt let it slip one night – my mom hadn’t been going to the park to relax.
She had been meeting someone. At first, I thought she meant another man. I was fifteen when I overheard it, and the first thing that jumped to my teenage brain was betrayal.
But my aunt, already tipsy from a second glass of wine, saw the confusion on my face and added, “Not like that. It was someone she felt responsible for.”
It took me years to gather the courage to ask my mom directly. By then, I was in college, living a few towns away, only coming home during long breaks.
We were sipping coffee on the porch one evening, the kind of night where the silence feels safe, and I just asked her. “Who were you meeting at the park all those mornings?”
She looked at me for a long time, like she was debating whether to lie or not. Then she sighed and said, “I guess you’re old enough now.”
My mom told me about Sonia.
Sonia had been her best friend in high school. They’d done everything together – snuck out to concerts, studied at the library, even planned to move to the city after graduation. But Sonia’s life had taken a rough turn.
She got involved with a guy who dragged her into drugs. By the time my mom realized how bad things were, Sonia had dropped out and disappeared for two years. When Sonia resurfaced, she was living in a shelter near our neighborhood park.
She was sober but barely holding on. My mom had found her by accident, recognizing her sitting alone on a bench one early morning. That’s when the morning ritual started.
Every weekday, after dropping me off at school, my mom would bring Sonia breakfast. They’d sit together on the same bench, talk about life, and share a coffee. She never told anyone because Sonia didn’t want pity.
She wanted a friend who saw her as more than her past. “I couldn’t save her,” Mom said, her eyes getting glassy. “But I could show her that someone still cared.”
It changed the way I saw my childhood.
I’d always thought Mom liked quiet mornings and the smell of dew-covered grass. Turns out, she was holding someone else’s hand in the silence. After hearing that, I started visiting the park whenever I was home.
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