“Do I know you?”

The woman broke completely.

“Yes.”

She nodded through sobs.

“Yes, baby… you do.”

The little girl stood frozen beside them, clutching her mother’s coat.

The boy’s eyes searched the woman’s face.

“I know your voice.”

That was all it took.

The woman let out a cry she had been holding in for years.

“I’m your mother.”

The boy blinked at her.

Then shook his head like he was afraid to believe it.

“No…”

She cupped his face tighter.

“They took you from me at the train station.”

Her breath trembled.

“You were wearing a little red sweater.”

His lips parted.

“You used to sing to me.”

The woman stared.

The boy’s eyes filled.

“When it rained.”

She nodded so hard she could barely breathe.

“Yes.”

Tears rolled down his dirty cheeks now.

The little girl stepped closer.

“Mom?”

The woman looked at her daughter, then back at the boy.

“He’s your brother.”

The boy stared at the girl in the white coat.

Then at the blue bow in her hair.

A memory moved across his face.

Soft.

Painful.

“You weren’t born yet.”

The woman’s sob turned into a broken laugh.

“No.”

He looked back at her, shaking.

“I thought… I thought nobody came for me.”

She pulled him into her arms.

“I never stopped.”

He resisted for only a second.

Then he collapsed into her, holding on like he had been waiting his whole life to stop being alone.

The little girl wrapped her arms around both of them.

The boy cried into his mother’s shoulder.

And in the middle of the alley, with traffic humming far away and the sandwich still clutched in his hand, he whispered the line that broke her heart all over again.

“I kept the mark because I thought maybe someone would know it meant I belonged to somebody.”