But his mind wasn’t on her. It was on the voice. That woman’s voice. It clung to him—soft, trembling, hauntingly familiar. He didn’t want to believe it. It made no sense. But it sounded like her: the same pitch, the same lingering note at the end of “sunshine.”
He got up, padded barefoot across the cold floor, and opened his laptop. Old videos. He clicked.
The screen filled with the gentle chaos of a first birthday. Balloons, cake-smeared fingers, and laughter. In the middle, she sat on the couch, blonde hair falling around her face, holding baby Leo against her chest.
You are my sunshine.
Same key, same phrasing, same soft vibrato on please don’t take my sunshine away.
Brian’s breath caught. He paused the video and leaned back, stunned. “No,” he whispered.
But something inside him shifted. He opened the old accident report, files he hadn’t read in years. The night Donna’s car had crashed on the icy bridge, they never found her body—just twisted metal and broken glass on the passenger side. Blood, a burnt coat, presumed dead. But not confirmed. She had been driving alone. He hadn’t been there.
His stomach turned. A detail blinked at him from the corner of the report: Burn pattern consistent with passenger side glass rupture.
A scar. The woman on the street had a scar, just like that.
Brian shut the laptop slowly. He couldn’t say it out loud yet. But the thought screamed inside him. What if she’s not gone? What if Donna’s alive? And what if he’d walked past her without even knowing?
Leo lay on his bed, small fingers wrapped tightly around the faded stuffed animal pressed to his chest. The ceiling above him was painted in soft shadows from the hallway light, but his mind was somewhere far away. He wasn’t sleepy. Not really. His eyes blinked slowly as his memory played a familiar melody in his head, like a dream he couldn’t fully wake up from.
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.
The voice wasn’t loud. It was warm, close. He remembered the sound and the feeling that always came with it: his mother’s arms pulling him close, the gentle rhythm of her hand patting his back when he coughed, and the soft scent of her hair when she bent down to kiss his forehead. He could almost feel her lips brushing his skin, the way her voice dipped just slightly on, please don’t take my sunshine away.
He remembered all that. But her face? It was like trying to hold water. The harder he tried to picture it, the more it slipped away. Blurry. Gentle. Safe. But not clear.
Leo sat up slowly, grabbing his box of crayons from the shelf beside his bed. He pulled a piece of paper from his desk and began to draw with quiet concentration. A woman, sitting cross-legged on a rug, holding a small boy. He gave her a green sweater. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt right. He added soft yellow hair that fell across her shoulders, her arms wrapped around the little boy, and a teddy bear. Not the one he held now, but the one in the stroller that day, the ripped one. The one she had sung to.
He pressed the crayon harder now, outlining her smile. It wasn’t big; it was gentle.
Later that evening, Lisa passed by Leo’s room. The door was open just enough for her to peek in. He wasn’t sleeping; he was sitting on the floor, finishing a drawing. She stepped inside softly.
“Hey buddy,” she said, crouching down. “What are you working on?”
Leo looked up briefly, then held up the picture. His face was calm but serious. Lisa smiled faintly. “Is that me?”
Leo paused, shaking his head once. “That’s Mom,” he said quietly. “My first mom.”
Lisa blinked.
“Oh, she’s not dead,” Leo added after a pause. “She’s just lost.”
The words settled into the air like falling snow. Lisa stood still, her hands relaxed at her sides, but her mouth didn’t form a reply. She looked at the picture again, then stepped back gently.
“I see,” she said softly. “That’s… beautiful.” She left without another word.
The next day, Brian sat behind the wheel of his car, engine idling, hands gripping the steering wheel tighter than necessary. The street ahead was dim; cold wind whistled between rusted fences and the metal bones of the old train tracks. He had told himself this was just curiosity, just caution, but his heart was pounding.
He saw her. Across the street, near a wall of graffiti, the woman was sitting on a crate beside a torn stroller. She was alone, her head bowed, blonde hair dull under the orange streetlight. She reached into the stroller, brushing her hand slowly over the fur of a stuffed bear.
And then, she did something that made his throat tighten. She smoothed the bear’s hair with her fingers, the exact same way Donna used to smooth Leo’s when he fell asleep in her lap.
Brian’s breath caught; his grip loosened on the wheel. He stepped out of the car, hesitating for a moment before walking forward slowly. As he approached, she turned her head.
The light hit her face. A pale scar, faint but visible, ran from the edge of her cheekbone to just above her temple. Her eyes met his—startled, fragile, searching. And even in their confusion, even in their emptiness, something familiar stirred.
Brian stopped in his tracks. His lips parted, his voice barely escaping. “Donna?”
The woman looked at him, unsure, then lowered her eyes quickly. But Brian didn’t move. Because for the first time—not in memory, not in video, but in flesh—he was no longer sure this was a stranger. For the first time, he dared to believe.
It was just past dusk when Brian returned to the street he couldn’t forget. The city lights hadn’t yet touched the corners of this quiet block; only a dim flicker from an old convenience store sign blinked somewhere down the street. The cold air bit at his face, but he barely noticed. In his hands, he held a single paper cup, steam rising faintly from the lid.
This time, he wasn’t in a suit. No polished shoes, no heavy cologne—just a grey wool coat and a scarf loosely draped around his neck. This wasn’t the version of himself people met in boardrooms. This was someone else, a man with questions and a hope he was almost afraid to name.
He spotted her in the usual place, sitting on the curb beside the rusted stroller: same coat, same messy hair, same bear in her arms. She was murmuring softly, rocking slightly, not noticing him at all.
Brian stopped a few steps away, crouched slowly, and placed the cup of tea on the pavement between them. He didn’t slide it too close, just far enough that she could reach it if she wanted…
