“I apologize for the delay, sir. Here’s your coffee……” Kristin had only begun to speak when the cup slid from her grasp and dropped on the floor.

“What the heck is wrong with you? Are you out of your mind? Can’t you see that there’s someone seated here?” yelled a passenger who had been a victim of the coffee spill. But instead of providing the man a tissue to wipe himself, Kristin stood paralyzed.

“This – This can’t be true, Kristin! You must be dreaming!” she muttered to herself as her fellow attendant Cassandra arrived.

“Please accept my apologies on behalf of my colleague, sir. I’ll clean it right away. And Mr. Moss,” she said, turning to face the passenger in the window seat. “I’ll go grab you some coffee right now. Come with me, Kristin. Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience,” she repeated with a smile before departing.

Cassandra swiftly prepared the coffee and cleaned up the spilled mess. She threw the trash into a plastic bag and glared angrily at Kristin. “See, this is why I warned you not to return to work so soon! Kris, you need to rest! You are not prepared to work.”

“Just tell me one thing, Cassandra,” Kristin muttered, opening her locket to display a photograph within. “You just called him Mr. Moss, didn’t you? Doesn’t he resemble my late husband?”

Life is quite unexpected.

“Look, Kris, that’s…” Cassandra had only begun to speak when she glanced at the photo. “Oh my gosh!” she gasped, covering her mouth in shock. “That man looks like your husband! But how is that….”

“I know, right? But how is this possible? That’s what I’m thinking,” Kristin replied quietly, wondering who the man who resembled her husband was.

Almost three months ago, she had lost her husband, Bob, to a heart attack. They were happily married for ten years, and it was only a few years ago that Bob requested her to quit her job so that she could spend more time with him.

“Babe,” he’d said. “You’ve been there for both of us for so long, and that’s enough. I want you to take a break and devote your time to the house and us.”

Kristin enjoyed her profession, but she was never really enamored with it. She’d been working only because she was the breadwinner for her family while Bob was attempting to start his business. After 6 years, when Bob’s business had been thriving, she decided to quit her work and spend more time with him.

Everything was going swiftly until Bob unexpectedly suffered a heart attack and died. Kristin was plunged into despair after his death because she was alone and childless. She refused to accept her new reality and practically isolated herself from the rest of the world.

But as time passed, she realized she couldn’t go on like this. When she looked at herself in the mirror one day, she barely recognized herself. She was reduced from a cheerful young woman to a frail woman who appeared much older for her age and deprived of care and love. At that point, she decided to return to her job and start afresh.

However, she never expected that exactly three months after bidding farewell to her husband, she’d run into a man at work who’d bring back painful memories of losing her beloved better half.

“Kris! Can’t you hear me?” Cassandra shook her, interrupting her thoughts. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Uh….huh….wants to talk to me? Who?” she asked, bewildered.

“Mr. Moss. His full name is Steven Moss. He just told me he wants to talk to you.”

“To me? But…” Kristin didn’t understand what was going on. She took a deep breath and steadied herself before approaching Steven. “Yes, sir. How may I assist you?” she asked, forcing a smile on her face.

“Oh, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I sensed you were tense. Is everything all right?”

“Thank you for your concern, sir,” Kristin replied. “I’m all good. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Oh no, that’s all right. By the way,” he added as he rummaged through his wallet. “This is my business card. I’m afraid I ruined your dress,” he remarked, pointing to her coffee-stained skirt. “My secretary will reimburse you. I apologize once more.”

“Oh, sir, that’s fine,” Kristin said. “You don’t have to.”

“Please, I insist.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said as she accepted the business card. “I really appreciate it. Have a nice day,” she added as she walked away.

However, that night at home, she couldn’t stop thinking about Steven. Every time she tried to sleep, her mind returned to him. Did Bob have a brother he was unaware of? Is that possible? Perhaps Mrs. Fisher would know! She pondered and decided to speak with her mother-in-law the next day.

When she arrived at her mother-in-law’s house, the older woman greeted her at the door. “Kristin? Is everything alright?”

“I’m sorry for disturbing you so early in the morning, Mrs. Fisher, but I needed to talk about something important.”

“Oh, come in. Come in. I was just making breakfast. Anyway, after you two moved out, this place never felt like home anymore.”

“Actually, Mrs. Fisher, I wanted to speak with you about Bob. I know this may seem unusual to you, but I met this guy on a flight yesterday….and he…he looked exactly like Bob.”

Mrs. Fisher’s eyes almost welled up when Kristin mentioned that, and she noticed weird anxiety in the woman’s eyes at one point. “Is everything okay, Mrs. Fisher’? You look…”

“I have something to tell you, Kristin. Could you please go to my room and get the album from my bedside drawer?”

Kristin had no idea what was going on, but she did what Mrs. Fisher instructed. Then the older woman asked her to take a seat and showed her a photograph of twins. “You see these babies? It’s Bob and his twin brother.”

“What?” Kristin couldn’t believe her ears!

“You know that Bobby didn’t have a father. He left me when I got pregnant. Later I found out that I was having twins. I gave birth to them, but I knew that I couldn’t bring up two sons even then. I was 19 years old, my parents were poor, and I was still a student. So I decided that I would give up one child. I took their picture before leaving one of them at an orphanage. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I didn’t have a choice.”

Kristin couldn’t fight back her tears as Mrs. Fisher began sobbing over the photos. Fortunately, she had Steven’s business card with her, so she decided to prepare a surprise for her.

She dialed Steven’s receptionist and requested her to connect the call to Steven. When he answered the phone, she explained everything to him and asked if he could visit them if he was free anytime soon. Steven was more than happy to agree with the request because it turns out he, too, was looking for his biological parents.

His adoptive family had told him he was adopted when he turned 18, and he knew his biological mother’s name. But unfortunately, after getting busy with work, he couldn’t invest much time in tracking her down. When he received the call from Kristin, he was over the moon and flew the next day to see Mrs. Fisher.

The older woman burst out crying when she answered the door and found him at the doorstep. She hugged him and apologized for abandoning him, and Steven forgave her since he understood she did it out of compulsion. He now pays her visits every year, and Mrs. Fisher no longer feels alone.