The warehouse is silent except for the lullaby. A whisper of melody, fragile as dust in the ruins. It hums through the air, curling around the shattered windows and bullet-ridden walls like it belongs to another world. A world softer than this one. A world that still remembers warmth. Like the sun who once shined so brightly.
I step forward, one foot hesitating before the other. The melody pulls me in, unravels something tight in my chest. I don't know why, but I want to see the voice behind it. Maybe because it doesn't belong here. Maybe because, for a moment, I want to believe in something that isn't war and hunger and death. Some thing that is light, joy and life.
The warehouse doors creak when I push them open, the sound splintering the lullaby for just a moment. Inside, the light is dim, cutting through the dust in weak slants. It smells of old wood, of rust and forgotten things.
And then I see her.
She sits in a chair by a broken window, hands moving steadily, gracefully, through a piece of yarn. Knitting. The needles click together, soft and rhythmic, keeping time with her song. Her hair is long and graying, tied loosely over one shoulder. Her face is worn but not empty, lined with something deeper than sorrow. Patience. Hope. Strength. Things, that, a long time ago before all of this I maybe had.
She doesn't see me at first. Her eyes are focused on the threads in her lap, fingers pulling them into something whole, something warm.
And then she looks up.
And everything stops.
Her breath hitches. The yarn slips from her fingers. Her lips part, trembling, as if forming a name she's afraid to say out loud. Then, before I can move, before I can step back and disappear, she is running toward me.
"My son," she whispers.
I should stop her. I should shake my head, tell her no, tell her I'm not who she thinks I am. But I don't.
Because her arms are around me before I can even think to stop her. Because she's holding me so tightly, so fiercely, like she's afraid I'll disappear if she lets go.
And because I can feel her shaking.
She is crying.
She is crying because she thinks I'm her son. Because she has been waiting for him. Because I have walked into this place like a ghost slipping into a life that does not belong to me.
And I…
I let her.
I let her hold me.
Because for the first time in so long, someone is holding me. Someone is calling me home.
She pulls back just enough to cup my face in her hands, her eyes searching, desperate. "You came back," she whispers, almost in disbelief. "You came back to me."
I can't speak.
I nod.
She leads me to the chair beside hers, pressing me down with the careful urgency of someone who has spent too long waiting, too long fearing this moment would never come. She takes my hands in hers, fingers running over my skin like she's memorizing me.
"My sweet boy," she says, her voice breaking. "How have you been? Are you eating? Are you safe?"
I should tell her the truth.
I should tell her I don't know my name. That I have been walking through ruins, through nightmares, through fire. That I have seen things no one should see, that I have been alone for so long I forgot what it felt like to be anything but empty.
But when I open my mouth, what comes out is, "I don't remember."
She freezes.
"Sweetheart?"
I look down at my hands. "I don't remember anything," I say again, quieter. "I just knew I had to come here."
A lie wrapped in something close to the truth.
She exhales, long and shaky, before smoothing a hand over my hair. "Oh, my love," she murmurs. "You must have been through so much. But you're home now. That's all that matters."
And then, softly, she begins to tell me a story.
About a girl who had everything—a name that meant something, a family that wanted her to marry a man with wealth and status. But she did not love him. She loved a farmer, a man with calloused hands and a gentle voice. She left everything for him, gave up riches and comfort for a life of love, of hard work and happiness.
She tells me about their son.
The child they waited for, prayed for, for years. The boy who became their whole world. How he laughed like his father, how he loved the fields, how he would sit beside her as she knitted, small fingers tracing the soft threads.
And then, the war.
The soldiers who came and took her husband, who dragged him from their home and left his body in the dirt.
And how her son changed.
How his laughter disappeared. How he locked himself in his room for days, for weeks, emerging only to listen to the news of the war. How his eyes hardened, how his hands clenched into fists.
And then, one day, how one day he was gone.
Only a letter left behind.
"I will make them pay. I will not stop until I do. I love you, Mother. But I have to go."
She has been waiting ever since.
Knitting. Singing. Hoping.
"Four years," she whispers, wiping at her eyes. "Four years I have waited. And now you're here."
Guilt is a weight, pressing into my ribs, pressing into my breath.
I open my mouth—to tell her the truth, to give her back the son she lost, even if only in memory. But, we humans are vile creatures and I just look at her.
She takes my hands again.
"My love," she says, voice so full of warmth it aches. "No matter what has happened, no matter what you have seen, you are still my son. And you are here. That is all that matters to me."
She reaches into the folds of her dress and pulls out a bracelet. Worn leather, threaded with careful stitches, the initials carved into the clasp almost faded.
She fastens it around my wrist.
"You always loved this," she says softly. "It was your father's. He gave it to you when you turned twelve. You said you would never take it off."
I stare at it.
At the thing that is not mine. At the name that is not mine.
But I say nothing.
Because I don't know my name anymore.
And maybe, just maybe, this one will do.
She breaks a piece of bread in half, pressing one piece into my hands. "Eat, sweetheart," she murmurs. "You look so thin."
I take a bite.
And for the first time in so, so long, I taste something other than dust and blood.
I close my eyes.
Breathe.
And for a moment, just a moment, I let myself believe I am who she thinks I am.
Because she is holding my hand.
Because she is singing, voice soft and steady.
Because I do not have to run, or fight, or pretend I am anything more than a boy who has finally come home.
For a moment, I let myself stay.