They told us we’d never amount to anything – just another set of orphans the system would chew up and spit out. But they didn’t know about the promise.
I was five when the accident took our parents. One day I was stealing cookie dough from Mom’s mixing bowl, the next I was clutching a social worker’s hand in some sterile office. My sister Marissa cried silently beside me while Caleb, the oldest at nine, just kept repeating: “It’ll be okay.” He was lying, but I loved him for it.
The orphanage smelled like disinfectant and loneliness. They sold our house, our café, everything that smelled like home. At night, Caleb would tell us stories about how we’d get it all back someday. I believed him because I had to.
When foster families started taking us in, we made them promise we could still see each other. Marissa went first – she left me her favorite hair ribbon. Then it was my turn, then Caleb’s. We became experts at sneaking visits – passing notes in school, meeting at the library, inventing reasons why our foster parents should let us spend weekends together.
As teenagers, the dream crystallized: we would buy back Mom and Dad’s café. Caleb worked himself to exhaustion at any job he could find. Marissa memorized every coffee recipe our parents had used. I saved lunch money in a shoebox under my bed. People called us delusional, but their doubt only fueled us.
The day we signed the papers, we cried so hard the realtor looked uncomfortable. The café was a wreck – broken tiles, stained walls, years of neglect. But we saw past that. While our friends partied in college, we renovated. While they took vacations, we perfected our coffee blends. Slowly, customers returned – first out of pity, then for the best cinnamon rolls in town.
Years later, when we stood on the porch of our childhood home, keys shaking in my hands, I realized something profound: grief doesn’t disappear, but neither does love. Our parents were gone, but their lessons lived on in every cup we served, every late-night laugh we shared, every Sunday dinner where Caleb still insists on making terrible dad jokes – just like our father did.
