**Diary Entry**
The night was bitterly cold, frost clinging to every surface like a ghostly shroud. Snowflakes drifted lazily from the sky, settling on the cobbled streets and rooftops of London. Through the quiet, a woman moved cautiously, her breath forming little clouds in the air. Cradled in her arms was a baby, swaddled tightly in a woollen blanket, a tiny knitted cap on his head. The child slept soundly, unaware that his life was about to unravel before it had even begun.
She paused in front of a faded brick building, the sign above the door reading *St. Agnes Home for Children*. Her gaze lifted to the sky as if pleading for some divine intervention, but the heavens offered no reply. Her hands shookher heartbeat so fierce it could have echoed through the empty streets. With trembling fingers, she placed the child gently on the doorstep and tucked a note beside him:
*”Oliver. Forgive me. I love him. I had no choice.”*
For a moment, she lingered, as though willing someone to stop her. Her fingers clenched, her body shuddered with silent sobs. Then, with a sharp inhale, she stepped back. And then another. And then she raninto the night, away from the life she knew, from the child she could not keep.
A short while later, the door creaked open. Standing there was Margaret Whitmorea kind-faced woman in her fifties, one of the caregivers at St. Agnes. The moment her eyes fell upon the baby, she gasped, scooping him up into her arms.
“Good heavens, who could leave you out here in the cold?” she murmured, holding him close.
She didnt know it then, but this moment would stay with her foreverthe way the snowflakes melted on his lashes, the way he instinctively curled into her warmth, as if already seeking shelter from the world.
For Oliver, St. Agnes became his first home. First, a cot with wooden rails. Then, a nursery with bright blue cupboards. Later, a schoolroom thick with the scent of chalk dust and worn books.
He grew used to itto Margarets gentle voice, to the sternness of Mrs. Cartwright, to the constant reminders to *sit still, mind your manners*. He learned not to hope. Every time prospective parents camepeople who might take him awayhis chest tightened. But time and again, no one chose him. So he pretended it didnt matter.
When he was eight, his friend Thomas asked, “What if your mothers still out there? Maybe shes looking for you?”
Oliver shook his head. “No.”
“How dyou know?”
“Because if she were looking, she would have found me by now.”
He said it evenly. But that night, he buried his face in his pillow, muffling the tears so no one would hear.
Years passed. The orphanage taught survivalhow to fight, how to take a punch, how to blend in. But Oliver was different. He loved books, dreamed of university, wanted more than this place could give.
At fourteen, he asked Margaret, “Why did she leave me?”
She hesitated before answering. “Sometimes, life forces people into impossible choices. Perhaps she had no other way.”
“Would you have left?”
She didnt reply, only smoothed a hand over his hair.
At sixteen, he received his first passport. *Father*: blank. *Mother*: unknown.
He stayed at St. Agnes while studying for college. Evenings were spent hauling crates at a warehouse in Dartford, scrubbing floors, enduring the jeers of lorry drivers.
He never complained. If he broke, thered be nothing left.
Sometimes, he dreamed of an endless field. A woman stood in the distance, waving, callingbut no matter how fast he ran, she never grew closer.
One evening, he found the notekept in his personal file, which Margaret had quietly given him. The paper was yellowed, the ink smudged, as if written by someone barely older than a child.
*”Oliver. Forgive me. I love him. I had no choice.”*
He read it again and again, tracing each word with his fingers. And then he knewhe had to find the truth.
He started at the archives. The registry office gave him his file numberthe one assigned when he arrived at St. Agnes. The details were sparse: birth date, health records, nothing more. But there was the note. And one cluethe hospital where he was born.
Oliver went there. A midwife, Elizabeth Hart, greeted hima woman with sharp blue eyes whod worked there for decades.
“January 2004?” She frowned. “I remember a young girl. Came from a village near Kent. Had a baby boy then vanished. Never registered the birth. We tried to find her, but she disappeared.”
“What was her name?”
“Emily, I think. Or Lily. Thin thing, cried all the time. Said her family threw her out, the father was gone.”
It was more than hed dared hope for.
Next came village visits. He knocked on doors, asked old farmers, but most shrugged him off*let the past stay in the past, lad.*
Then, in a village called Blackwood, he met a woman in the grocers. Her eyesjust like hisfroze him in place.
“Excuse me is your name Emily?”
She turned. Her face drained of colour.
“Oliver?”
“How do you know my name?”
“I” She sank onto a bench. “Ive never forgotten you. I left because I was seventeen, homeless, starving. I thought if I kept you, wed both die. So I let you go. I prayed every night. Tried to find you, but no one would tell me”
He said nothing.
“I dont expect forgiveness. Or love. I just needed you to know. I loved you. Always. I was just scared.”
Slowly, he sat beside her. Stared at the horizon. Then, softly:
“I dont know what to call you. Or how to fix this. But I want to try.”
She wept. He did too.
Two broken hearts, stitching themselves back together.
Six months later, Oliver moved to Blackwood. He switched to correspondence courses, worked at the village library. He rented a room in Emilys cottagethough now, hesitantly, he called her *Mum*.
They shared meals, planted flowers, walked the countryside. The ache of the past never fully faded, but nowhe wasnt alone.
One evening, he showed her an old photo: the orphanage, him at seven, in a bobble hat, Thomas beside him.
“Thats my mate. Hes in prison now. No one visits. Maybe we could go?”
“Of course, love.”
That word*love*felt foreign. But warm. Real. *His*.
**Epilogue**
Sometimes life takes too much. Sometimes pain carves space for something new. Sometimes, a shattered heart still remembers how to beat.
Oliver walked a long roadfrom the icy steps of St. Agnes to the warmth of a mothers home. He learned that forgiveness isnt always necessary to begin again. But truththat matters.
And the truth was there. In her eyes. In her hands, trembling as she brushed his hair. In her smile when he called her *Mum*.
