When I was a kid, she was always there at the station, selling flowers. Years passed, I left, I returned—but she never moved.
One day I asked why. She said softly, “Because if I leave, someone might come back and not find me.”
She told me about Victor, a soldier who’d bought a rose before leaving for war. He gave her his lucky coin, promising to return. He never did. Still, she waited—over forty years.
Then one day, he finally appeared. Older, scarred, holding a lily. “Maria?” he whispered. “Victor?” She cried, but smiled. He couldn’t stay—he had a family now.
Her heart broke, yet she said, “You came back. That’s enough.”
Not long after, she stopped coming to the station. Before leaving, she told me, “Sometimes waiting isn’t about who we’re waiting for—it’s about who we become while we wait.”
