\u201cYou owe me coffee for a year,\u201d\u00a0she muttered as we flipped through hospital records.\n

Minutes passed. My hope dwindled. And then\u2014\n

\u201cHere.\u201d\n

I froze, staring at the file in front of me.\n

$\"\"$ \n

Susan had been admitted the night she disappeared. No ID. Severe head trauma. Memory loss.\n

No one had come to claim her. No missing person alert had been filed in her name.\n

But there was a contact number. I dialed it, my hands trembling.\n

A tired voice answered.\u00a0\u201cHello?\u201d\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry for calling so late. My name is Emma. I\u2019m looking for Susan Wilson. I think\u2026 I think she might be your mother.\u201d\n

Silence.\n

Then, a deep, shaky sigh.\n

\u201cShe lost everything that night\u2014her past, her name. But there\u2019s one thing she\u2019s never let go of. A place. A name.\u201d\n

I closed my eyes.\u00a0\u201cTom.\u201d\n

\u201cYes.\u201d\n

The Reunion\n
Tom arrived at the caf\u00e9 on Monday, dressed in his best suit. His hands trembled slightly as he smoothed the tablecloth.\n
\u201cShe\u2019s here,\u201d\u00a0I whispered, nodding toward the window.\n
A woman sat in a wheelchair outside, hands folded in her lap. Her hair was grayer than in the photo, her frame thinner.\n
Tom swallowed hard and stepped forward.\n
\u201cSusan?\u201d\n
Her eyes flickered to him. She studied his face, something stirring behind her gaze. A pause\u2026\n
Then, a breathless whisper.\u00a0\u201cTom?\u201d\n
Tears welled in his eyes as he knelt beside her, his hands finding hers.\n
\u201cIt\u2019s me, love. I\u2019ve been waiting.\u201d\n
Her lip trembled.\u00a0\u201cI thought I lost you.\u201d\n
Tom cupped her cheek, his voice breaking.\u00a0\u201cYou could never lose me.\u201d\n
From his coat pocket, he pulled out the same velvet box he had carried for a year. He opened it, revealing the ring that had waited just as long as he had.\n
\u201cSusan\u2026 will you marry me?\u201d\n
Tears slipped down her cheeks.\u00a0\u201cYes, Tom. A thousand times, yes.\u201d\n
He exhaled shakily, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.\n
Behind them, her daughter covered her mouth, stunned. She had never seen her mother look this alive.\n
And for the first time in a year, Tom\u2019s table was no longer set for two.\n
It was filled with love, laughter, and the promise that\u00a0some stories aren\u2019t meant to end unfinished.\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The elderly man at my caf\u00e9 always ordered dinner for two. But no one ever came. For months, I watched as he sat by the window, staring at the empty chair across from him, his fingers absently tracing the edge of his napkin. He never ate much, never lingered after finishing his tea. One evening, …\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":101849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1439],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101851,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101848\/revisions\/101851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}