**Diary Entry – 12th November**
The snow came down softly, blanketing the streets and rooftops, settling on the shoulders of those hurrying home. Through the haze of white, a woman trudged forward, clutching a small bundle to her chesta baby wrapped tightly in a worn grey blanket, a knitted hat pulled over his tiny head. The boy slept soundly, unaware that this night would alter the course of his life forever.
She stopped in front of a weathered building, its sign barely legible: *St. Agnes Home for Children.* Her hands shook as she lifted her gaze to the sky, as if pleading for some sign, some strengthbut the heavens offered none. Her breath hitched, her heart pounding so loudly she feared it might wake the child.
With trembling fingers, she laid the infant on the cold doorstep and tucked a note beside him:
*”Thomas. Forgive me. I love him. I had no choice.”*
For a moment, she lingered, as if hoping someone might stop her. Her fists clenched, her shoulders trembling with silent sobs. Then, step by step, she retreated until she turned and raninto the night, away from the life shed known.
Minutes later, the door creaked open. Margaret Whitmore, a kind-faced woman in her fifties, stood in the threshold. Spotting the child, she gasped and scooped him up, pressing him close to her chest.
“Good heavens, who would leave you out here to freeze?” she murmured, brushing snow from his cheeks.
She didnt know then that this moment would stay with herhow his lashes caught the melting flakes, how he curled instinctively against the cold.
For Thomas, St. Agnes became his only home. First, a cot in the nursery. Then, a place among the other children in the schoolroom with its scuffed wooden floors and the faint smell of chalk dust. He grew used to Margarets gentle voice, to the sternness of Mrs. Hargrove, to the endless reminders to *”behave, keep quiet, dont cause trouble.”*
He learned not to hope too much. Whenever prospective families visited, his heart would leaponly to sink again when nobody chose him. So he pretended it didnt matter.
When Thomas was eight, his friend Daniel asked, “Dyou reckon your mums still out there? Maybe shes looking for you?”
“No,” Thomas said quietly.
“How dyou know?”
“Because if she were, shed have found me by now.”
His voice was steady, but that night he buried his face in his pillow, muffling the tears.
Years passed. The home taught survivalhow to stand your ground, take a punch, blend in. But Thomas was different. He read books, dreamed of more, and studied hard. He refused to stay trapped.
At fourteen, he asked Margaret, “Why did she leave me?”
She hesitated. “Sometimes people dont choose, love. Sometimes life is too cruel. Maybe she was suffering too.”
“Would you have done it?”
She didnt answer. Just smoothed his hair with a sad smile.
At sixteen, he received his first ID card. Under *Father*blank. Under *Mother*nothing.
He worked evenings as a stock boy in a warehouse on the outskirts of London, hauling crates, scrubbing floors, enduring the barked orders of impatient lorry drivers. He never complained. If he broke, thered be nothing left.
Some nights, he dreamed of running through an endless field. A woman stood in the distance, calling to himbut no matter how fast he ran, she never grew closer.
One evening, he found the old note tucked in his file, which Margaret had quietly given him. The paper was yellowed, the ink smudged, as if written by hands too young and afraid to hold steady.
*”Thomas. Forgive me. I love him. I had no choice.”*
He read it over and over, as if the words might rewrite his past. Until, finally, he knewhe had to find the truth.
He started with records. The local registry office gave him his birth filelittle more than a date and a hospital number. But it was a start.
The midwife at St. Marys, a sharp-eyed woman named Eleanor Dawson, squinted at his notes. “January 2004? There was a girlyoung thing, barely more than a child herself. Came from the countryside, had a baby boy. Left without a word. We tried to find her, but she vanished.”
“Her name?”
“Think it was Lucy… or maybe Emily. Skinny, always crying. Said her family disowned her, the father long gone.”
It was more than hed hoped for.
He scoured archives, village records. In a tiny hamlet called Willowbrook, he found herstanding behind the counter of a village shop, her grey eyes just like his.
“Excuse me… are you Lucy?”
She turned, her face draining of colour.
“Thomas…?”
“How do you know my name?”
She sank onto the step outside. “Ive thought of you every day. I left because I was desperate. Seventeen, homeless, starving. I thought if I kept you, wed both die. I tried to find you laterbegged for answersbut nobody told me a thing.”
He said nothing.
“I dont expect forgiveness. I just needed you to knowI loved you. Still do. I was just… broken.”
Slowly, he sat beside her. Stared at the horizon. Then, softly:
“I dont know how to do this. But I want to try.”
She wept. So did he.
Half a year later, Thomas switched to part-time studies, took a job at the village library. He rented a room in Lucys cottagecalling her *Mum* came slowly, but it came.
They shared meals, planted roses by the door, walked the meadows at dusk. The past still ached, but now he knewhe wasnt alone.
One evening, he showed her a photo: him at seven, grinning beside Daniel in the homes yard.
“My mate. Hes in prison now. Nobody visits. Maybe we could?”
“Of course, son.”
The word felt strange. But warm. Real. *His.*
**Final Thought**
Sometimes life takes too much. Sometimes pain lays the stones for something new. And sometimes, a heart thats been shattered still remembers how to love.
Thomas walked a long roadfrom the frostbitten steps of St. Agnes to the warmth of a mothers kitchen. He learned that forgiveness isnt always necessary to move forward. But the truth? That matters.
And the truth was in her eyes. In her hands, trembling as they brushed his hair. In the way she smiled when he called her *Mum.*
