Alden and Pierre finally arrived at the orphanage where Pierre had lived as a child. A middle-aged woman was seen gently rocking a rattan baby cradle beside a worn-out sofa in the waiting room.
Pierre approached the woman, his eyes slightly teary. “Mère…,” he called her, using the French word for mother.
The woman turned toward him. Her eyebrows lifted, accentuating the wrinkles on her forehead. She slowly approached the figure who had just called her.
“Pierre… my son!” she cried with a hint of sobbing.
Pierre bent down to match the woman’s height and hugged her with emotion. The woman, whose body had grown slightly hunched with age, did her best to stand tall to return the embrace of the man she called her son.
It was a rare sight for Alden. A tinge of envy stirred in his heart. Unco
