On the night when the parents died, we lost not only our family but everything in its entirety. Yet in that darkness, with nothing left for us to hang on to, my siblings and I made a promise. A promise that would require sacrifices in years of grief and stubborn persistence to accomplish.
Our world was ripped apart in one night and I was only five years old. The next moment, we has a home, a café in which the smell of fresh bread fills the air and the sound of our parents’ laughter reverberated in the kitchen. The next, we had nothing. No goodbyes, no last hugs. Only a knock at the door and strangers telling us that our parents were gone.
I didn’t understand. When my sister, Emma, aged seven held my hand tightly, and her fingers trembled. My younger brother, Liam, nine, was just standing there, frozen, pale, and expressionless. They took us to the orphanage, and I only kept asking one question: “When is Mom and Dad coming back? No one answered.
It did not take weeks before the café was sold. The house disappeared as well, consumed by the debts, we have never heard of. It was as though our parents had been wiped out from the world.
One night amid the nocturnal hum of other children in the orphanage, Liam whispered into our ears saying: “We are all each other has left. I’ll take care of you. I promise.” And he did.
He was eating less so that Emma and I were able to eat more. He even saved on our little allowances, bought us little treats like sweets and fruit, even though he did not take anything for himself. When bullies did try and bother me Liam was there. He held Emma when she cried herself to sleep.
One very tired day, after a traumatic day, Liam pulled us together in our tiny room. His face was serious, his voice unperturbed. It was a dream that Mom and dad had. We are going to make it become reality. That café – they wanted it to be some statement. I know we’re just kids… but some day, we’ll get it back.”
I didn’t know how. But I believed him.
The day Emma ran away from the orphanage had ruined our life similar to losing parents all over again. I recall to me pulling her sweater and pleading with her not to leave. She got down her knees, hands on my face and her smile fake. She promised to visit every week, “ I’ll visit every week”. “I’ll bring you something sweet.”
I didn’t want candy. I simply wanted her just to stay.
Liam was next to me, with clenched fists. He didn’t cry: he never did but as I saw pain in his silence I cried. That night, the bed that she left was colder than ever.
As promised by her, Emma came back nearly every week. Her foster parents would allow her to visit and she would bring little things – chocolates, her stories, her warmth. ”It’s not bad,” she’d say while giving me a stuffed bear. “The food’s better than here.”
Liam kept silent, being ever fearful of the system. Then, it was my turn. I packed my belongings that I had and hugged the bear Emma had given me. “I do not want to go,” I whispered.
Liam got down on his kneels while looking straight in my eyes. “You’re not leaving us. We made a promise. You and I, whatever happens, we stick together”.
My foster family was nice and they lived close by so I saw my siblings to often. However, nothing seemed right without Liam. A year after, he also left. We had made a pact: we’d accept only placements close to us. And somehow, the system listened.
Despite the separate homes, we refused to go our separate ways. We got together at parks, we went out during weekends, we clung to the tie we developed in heartbreaks.
One evening after sunset while we were sitting on a park bench Liam stared at the sunset. He said, “We’re getting it back”.
Emma furrowed her brow. “Getting what back?”
He looked at us and his voice was firm. “Mom and Dad’s café.”
Liam began to work the day he turned sixteen. Grocery store stock boy, night shifts at the gas station, no glamour, but never once a complaining word. “It’s just the beginning”, he’d say, flopping onto the couch in Emma’s foster home.
At seventeen, Emma joined him, busing tables in a little diner. “You should have seen this guy today,” she groaned at night, throwing aside her apron. “Snapped his fingers at me like a dog”.
Liam smirked. “Did you spit in his drink?”.
Emma threw a napkin at him. “Tempted.”
I was on the sidelines watching them and I was too young to help but I had still held onto the dream.
When we hit the age of eighteen and aged out of the system, we did not go our own separate ways. We combined our savings and rented a small one bedroom apartment. Liam refused to sit on the chair but insisted that he sat on the couch. “We’re together again,” Emma said. “Like a real family.”
We worked like hell. Liam took on two jobs. Emma picked up doubles. I joined them when I was of age. We saved every penny we made. Vacations and luxuries – no. Only a peaceful, unrelenting push to a single objective.
One night, when we were counting the cash on the kitchen table, Liam was sitting back with a small grin on his mouth. “We’re close,” he said.
Emma raised a brow. “To what?”
He looked at us, and his voice was filled with the same fire from this orphanage room years ago. “To buying back the café.”
On the day we put our signatures on the papers, I swear that I could feel our parents with us. The building had seen many owners and by the time we got it back, it was virtually ruined: cracked floors, worn-out walls, rusty equipment. It was home to us.
We cleaned each and every corner, we painted every wall, and we replaced what was possible. Rather gradually, the place was alive once again- not only as the business, but as the renewed memory.
People noticed. Locals came, they came due to the warmth, nostalgia and quiet pride that was in the food we served. It wasn’t like we are building a café here, we were reviving our parents’ dream.
And then, at the age of thirty-four, we did the unthinkable. We bought back the house.
The home that we last heard Mom laugh in. Where Dad would sing in the kitchen. Where once there was a family. I was in front of the door holding the keys with my shaking hands.
“Do it together,” Liam said.
All the three of us pressed our hands on the knob. We turned it as one.
As soon as we walked in, the flood of memories hit us – the smell of bread, footsteps of running children, whispers of a life stolen way too early.
Emma wiped her tears. “They should be here.”
“They are,” Liam whispered.
Now we all have our own homes, lives we have managed to put together. However, every weekend, without fail, we assemble ourselves in the house – for family dinner, for laughter, for the bond that not even a failed marriage could break.
And every time, before we eat, Liam lifts his glass, as our father used to do.
” Only in the unity can a family solve any problems and overcome any obstacles”, he says, looking at us with quiet pride. “And we did. We kept our promise. Mom and Dad would be proud”.