🌧️ “Ten Little Hearts and One Grandmother”
I was only six years old when we lived on that dusty street, in a little house that always smelled of soup and sun-dried clothes.
There were ten of us. Ten children — “like a staircase,” the neighbors used to joke.

Our mother, Marisa, left early and came back late. Some nights, she didn’t come back at all.
We would sit by the window, our bellies rumbling, our hair tangled, staring across the narrow street at the house next door.

That was where Doña Lucía lived.

She was small and wrinkled, with her silver hair tied up in a neat bun and a flowered apron that seemed to bloom with her smile. At first, she only greeted us.
“Good morning, my little ones,” she’d say in a voice that felt like sunshine on cold skin.

But one morning, my oldest brother, Pedrito, dared to answer:

“We haven’t had breakfast, Doña.”

And that was the beginning of everything.

The first time, she gave us bread with butter and warm chocolate.
The second, fried eggs with beans.
The third, she already had a table set for ten.

After that, every morning we would knock on her door shouting:

“¡Doña Lucíaaa!”

And she would always open, apron spotless, smile ready, arms wide.

She brushed the girls’ hair, helped us with homework, patched our torn clothes, kissed our scraped knees.
Sometimes we asked if she had grandchildren. She would sigh softly and say,

“No, my dears. You’re the first.”

Soon, her house became our world. We fell asleep in her living room under floral blankets while she told us stories from her youth — tales of love, rain, and laughter.
She called us “my chicks.”
We called her “Grandma.”

Those were the happiest years of our lives.

Until one day, the whispers began.

“That old woman’s stealing those kids.”
“It’s not right.”
“Where’s their mother, anyway?”

Then came the social workers — women with hard eyes and soft perfumes.
I remember their clipboards. Their cold tone.
I remember Pedrito clinging to Grandma’s arm, crying,

“Don’t take us away!”

They peeled us off her one by one, like pulling apart the fingers of a desperate hug.
When it was my turn, I was placed into a car that smelled of wet leather and cheap perfume.

Through the window, I saw Doña Lucía standing in the doorway, her apron stained with tears, her eyes lost and shining.

That was the last time I saw her.
I was six.

And twelve years passed.

Now I’m eighteen. I live in a foster home, study in the afternoons, and work at a café.
But every night, when I close my eyes, I see her face. The way she stirred soup, the way she said “mis pollitos.”

I promised myself I’d find her one day.

From an old welfare file, I learned her full name — Lucía Méndez, 88 years old.
It took months of searching, phone calls, and hope.
Finally, I found her — in a nursing home across town.

When I arrived, my heart was beating so fast it hurt.
She sat by a window, rocking gently, staring at a garden with no flowers. Her hands were thin, her skin translucent.

“Doña Lucía?” I whispered.

She looked up slowly, frowning as if trying to remember a dream.
Then her eyes widened.

“Ana?” she said, trembling.

And suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

“Yes, Grandma. It’s me.”

She covered her face with both hands and began to cry. So did I.
Then she reached out, and I felt the same warmth I’d missed all my life.

One by one, my brothers came too. Pedrito, Rosa, Daniel… all the ones I could find through letters, social media, or pure faith.

When she saw us all together, she let out a laugh that sounded like an old church bell.

“My little chicks! My babies!”

We sat around her chair for hours, telling her about our lives — how we grew up, what we became, how we never forgot her.
She listened with teary eyes, nodding, smiling like a saint.

Then Pedrito said, softly but firmly:

“Grandma, we want to take you home.”

She blinked.

“Home? Which home, my dear?”

He smiled.

“Yours. The one that was always ours.”

The nursing home director didn’t object. “If she has family, she’s free to go,” he said.
Family. That word had finally found its meaning again.

We helped her into the car carefully. She held my hand all the way.

“Is my house really still there?” she asked in a trembling voice.

“Yes, Grandma,” I said. “We kept it alive in our memories.”

When we arrived, the gate was rusty, the garden overgrown, the walls cracked —
but the smell… oh, the smell was the same.
Damp earth. Old soup. Home.

She stepped inside slowly, touching the peeling walls, the old photographs, the furniture covered in dust.

“Here is where they brought me,” she whispered. “Here my little ones grew.”

That night, we cooked soup — too salty from tears, but perfect all the same.
We ate together, laughing, remembering, filling the air with warmth and noise.

When I went to check on her later, she was asleep in her rocking chair, a peaceful smile on her lips.
I covered her with a blanket and kissed her forehead.

“Rest now, Grandma,” I whispered. “We’re home.”