Chapter 8

The laughter of children still floated through the orphanage yard when Victoria turned, her gaze drawn to a quiet corner beneath the wide shade of an almond tree. The evening light spilled gently across the ground, golden and soft, yet the small figure sitting there seemed untouched by it — a fragile shadow of silence among the noise.

Victoria frowned slightly. A little girl sat alone on a low wooden bench, her tiny legs dangling, her hands folded on her lap. The other children were running around with chocolates and fruits, squealing with joy, but this one neither moved nor smiled. Her face was pale and still, her hair messy and uncombed. She looked too small to carry such loneliness.

Victoria felt a tug inside her chest.

She turned to one of the nuns standing nearby — an elderly woman with kind, lined eyes and a white veil pinned neatly under her chin.

“Mother,” Victoria said softly, nodding toward the child. “Why is that little one sitting alone? Hasn’t she eaten or joined the others?”

The nun followed her gaze and sighed heavily. “Ah, that poor girl,” she murmured. “She was brought in only yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Victoria’s brows lifted. “What happened?”

The nun pressed her rosary beads between her fingers, her voice lowering as though afraid the words might hurt the air itself. “A terrible accident, my dear. She was returning from school with her parents. The car… they say the brakes failed on a hill. It rolled into a ditch before anyone could help. Her parents didn’t survive.”

Victoria’s breath caught. “Oh my God…”

“She was found alive by passersby,” the nun continued quietly. “They brought her here late last evening. She’s barely four years old, and she hasn’t spoken since. The only words we’ve heard are ‘Dad’ and ‘Mom’. She whispers them in her sleep.”

The nun’s eyes glistened. “She hasn’t eaten much either. The doctor said she’s in shock.”

Victoria’s heart clenched painfully. A four-year-old — orphaned overnight. The thought sliced through her like glass. She felt the same ache that once lived in her own bones when she lost Sajah, the same hollow quiet that came after a goodbye you never prepared for.

“I see,” Victoria whispered. “Thank you, Sister.”

The nun nodded, watching as Victoria slowly walked toward the little girl.

Each step felt heavy. The closer she got, the smaller the child seemed — a tiny shell of sorrow in a world too loud, too bright. The girl’s fingers were tangled in the hem of her faded blue dress, her shoes dusty, her knees scraped from an old fall. Her hair framed her face in soft curls, and though her head was bowed, there was something painfully delicate about her — like a broken porcelain doll someone had forgotten to mend.

Victoria stopped a few feet away, unsure what to say at first. Then she bent down and placed the small basket she was carrying — filled with fruits and chocolates — beside the girl.

“Hi,” she said gently, her voice warm, careful. “My name is Victoria. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

The little girl didn’t answer. She kept her eyes down, clutching something behind her back.

Victoria waited a few seconds, then tried again, a little softer. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

The girl lifted her head slowly — and in that single moment, the world seemed to tilt.

Victoria’s breath left her body.

Those eyes…

They were his.

Wide, innocent, the same deep brown that once looked at her with a mixture of tenderness and fire. The same shape, the same quiet gleam that Sajah had — as though holding entire worlds in them. Her lips parted slightly, trembling. The resemblance was so strong it hurt. Even her tiny nose, her curved lips — they were his, carved into a child’s face.

It felt like looking at the ghost of a love that refused to die.

Victoria’s pulse stumbled. For a second she forgot where she was. She could almost hear Sajah’s voice whispering her name, feel his warmth again.

She forced herself to breathe and blinked hard, steadying her voice.

“What’s your name?” she repeated softly.

The child only blinked back, silent. Her small mouth moved, but no sound came.

Before Victoria could ask again, another older girl, perhaps eight or nine, approached them timidly. She held a small notebook in her hand.

“Her name is Katrina,” the older girl said, her tone matter-of-fact but gentle. “We saw it in her school book she had when they brought her here.”

Victoria turned to her. “Katrina…” she repeated quietly, testing the sound of it. “That’s a beautiful name.”

The older child nodded, glancing at the younger one. “She hasn’t talked to anyone. Not even the sisters. She doesn’t eat either. We tried to play with her this morning, but she just sat there.”

Victoria smiled faintly, though her heart was breaking. “Thank you, dear,” she said, brushing the girl’s shoulder before she ran off again.

Then she turned back to Katrina.

The silence between them was thick. The child kept her head slightly bowed, her small fingers still clutching whatever she hid behind her back.

Victoria crouched down so they were face to face. “You know, I used to sit alone too,” she said softly. “A long time ago, when I was little. I thought nobody wanted to talk to me either. But guess what? I was wrong.”

No response.

Victoria smiled again, trying to lighten her tone. “Do you like fruits? Look.” She opened her basket and lifted out a red apple, shiny in the sunlight. “It’s sweet. You can try one.”

Katrina didn’t move. Her gaze flicked to the apple, then away again.

“Hmm,” Victoria whispered, pretending to think. “You don’t like apples? What about chocolates?” She held up a bar wrapped in gold foil. “I made these myself. They’re magical, you know. They make people smile.”

Still nothing. The child’s expression didn’t change.

Victoria exhaled slowly. She knew pain when she saw it. Words didn’t reach a heart that had been shattered overnight. She sat down beside the little girl instead of talking, setting the basket between them. Silence, she had learned, could be its own kind of comfort.

Minutes passed like that — quiet, still, the evening breeze brushing their faces. Somewhere nearby, children laughed, the nuns called out names, and a bell rang faintly for supper.

Then, suddenly, a tiny whisper broke the air.

Victoria almost didn’t hear it at first.

“My mother…” the child said faintly, her voice cracked from disuse. “My mother promised to get my Barbie a new friend.”

Victoria turned, stunned that she had spoken at all. She smiled softly, keeping her voice steady. “A Barbie? You like dolls?”

The little girl nodded once, still not looking up.

“I used to love Barbie dolls too,” Victoria said, her voice warm with memory. “When I was little, I had a whole collection. My favorite one had a pink dress and shiny shoes. I used to braid her hair every morning before school.”

Katrina’s head tilted just slightly, curiosity flickering behind her eyes.

“You know what?” Victoria leaned closer, lowering her voice to a whisper as if sharing a secret. “I even made tiny clothes for her from my mother’s old scarves. She looked beautiful.”

For the first time, a flicker of life crossed the child’s face. Her tiny fingers, which had been hiding something behind her back, slowly came forward. In her hand was a small Barbie doll — its dress torn, one arm missing, its hair tangled but clearly loved.

Victoria’s heart twisted. The doll was dirty and broken, but the child held it like a treasure.

Katrina looked up at her shyly and said in a trembling voice, “My mother promised to get my Barbie a new friend… but I don’t know… my mother and father don’t want to speak to me again. They were sleeping. I was waking them, but they didn’t respond.”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and tears filled her eyes.

Victoria felt her throat tighten.

She reached out gently, brushing a strand of hair from the girl’s face. “They’re sleeping, sweetheart,” she said softly, fighting the lump rising in her chest. “So don’t wake them for now. They need rest. But one day, they’ll watch you from above, and they’ll smile again.”

Katrina blinked up at her with confusion and innocence, then slowly nodded. Her little hand trembled, still clutching the doll.

Victoria took one of the chocolates from the basket and unwrapped it. “Here,” she said, offering it gently. “For your Barbie’s new friend — and for you.”

The girl hesitated, then reached out her small hand and took it. She didn’t eat it yet, just held it tightly like it was precious.

That single gesture made Victoria’s heart ache and heal at once. She smiled through the sting in her eyes. “You’re a brave little girl, Katrina. Do you know that?”

The child didn’t answer, but her fingers brushed against Victoria’s palm — a quiet thank-you spoken through touch.

Minutes passed, and the silence between them changed. It wasn’t heavy anymore. It felt softer, shared. Victoria began talking in a low voice — telling small, harmless stories about her bakery, about how she once burned a whole tray of cupcakes because she forgot to set a timer, about how the smell of chocolate always reminded her of happiness.

Katrina listened, eyes flickering with tiny sparks of life. She didn’t smile yet, but her breathing calmed.

When Victoria finally rose to leave, the girl reached out and caught her hand — so suddenly, so instinctively, that it startled her.

Victoria looked down. Katrina’s little fingers curled around hers, fragile but firm.

“Will you come again?” the child whispered.

Victoria felt her heart break all over again — in the best and worst way. She knelt and pressed a kiss to the girl’s forehead. “Of course,” she said softly. “I promise I’ll come again.”

The girl nodded faintly, clutching her doll.

And so Victoria stayed longer than she planned. She played with her, talked to her, showed her how to draw tiny flowers in the sand with a stick, and even helped her braid her doll’s hair. The sun went down, painting the yard with gold and shadow, and the nuns began lighting the lamps one by one.

The laughter of the other children faded into the background. Time itself seemed to slow, caught between pain and something fragile — something like hope.

Kira — Victoria — found herself smiling again, the kind of smile that came from somewhere deep and honest. For a moment, she forgot the ache of the past, the name she’d buried, the man she’d lost.

All she saw was a child with Sajah’s eyes looking up at her with trust, holding her hand as if it were the only safe place left in the world.

She played with her and got very close to her.