Every morning I secretly fed a lonely little boy — so the management wouldn’t find out.
But one day, he didn’t come anymore.
Every morning I placed the cups on the counter, wiped the tables, and pretended everything was fine.
The world around me seemed trapped in a loop: the same faces, the same smell of coffee, the same jingle of the bell above the door.
One day I saw him. Small, maybe ten years old, with a backpack bigger than him.
He came every day at exactly 7:15, sat in the farthest corner, and ordered only a glass of water.
On the fifteenth day, I put a plate of pancakes in front of him.
— “I made too many by mistake,” I said, pretending it was just coincidence.
He looked at me for a few seconds, then said quietly:
— “Thank you.”
From then on, I brought him breakfast every morning.
He never said who he was or why he was alone, without parents. He just ate, and each time, he said “thank you.”
And one day, he didn’t come anymore.
I waited, watching the door, until I heard engines outside. Four black SUVs stopped in front of the café. A few men in uniform entered and, without a word, handed me a letter.
When I read the first lines, the plate slipped from my hands.
A heavy silence filled the room.
(to be continued in the first comment…)
I still remember that day. 9:17 a.m.
The air outside felt heavier — the four black SUVs stopped in front of the café. The men in uniform entered step by step, as if they were carrying not just papers, but someone’s destiny.
One of them approached me, removed his cap, and said he was looking for the woman who had fed the boy every morning.
My mouth went dry. “That’s me,” I said.
He took out a folded letter. His voice trembled slightly.
The boy’s name was Adam. His father had been a soldier. He had died on a mission.
“Please thank the woman from the café who fed my son. She gave him back what the world had taken from him — the feeling that someone still remembered him.”
When I finished reading, my hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Everything around me stopped — even the clinking of the spoons.
The soldiers saluted, and I stood still, unable to speak a word.
For a long time, I couldn’t recover from that day.
I read the letter again and again, afraid that if I let go of it, the words might fade.
Sometimes I imagined he would return — with the same backpack, the same shy smile.
A few weeks later, I received another letter. From the same officer. Inside — a short note and a photograph: the boy, the same boy, sitting in the grass next to a man in uniform.
It turned out he had been adopted by a friend of his father — a soldier whose life his father had once saved.
“Now he has a home. And he often remembers the woman who fed him every morning.”