{"id":7401,"date":"2026-06-20T17:26:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T11:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/?p=7401"},"modified":"2026-06-20T17:26:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T11:56:31","slug":"the-woman-across-the-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/?p=7401","title":{"rendered":"The Woman Across the Street"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The older boy wiped his eyes.<\/p>\n

Trying to stay strong.<\/p>\n

Trying not to let the toddler see him cry.<\/p>\n

Then\u2014<\/p>\n

a car stopped across the street.<\/p>\n

A woman stepped out.<\/p>\n

She froze.<\/p>\n

Staring at the two boys.<\/p>\n

The older boy didn’t notice.<\/p>\n

His attention was still on the toddler.<\/p>\n

Still on the empty food box.<\/p>\n

The woman took a step forward.<\/p>\n

Then another.<\/p>\n

Her hands began to shake.<\/p>\n

Because she recognized them.<\/p>\n

The older boy looked up.<\/p>\n

Confused.<\/p>\n

The woman was crying now.<\/p>\n

Tears streaming down her face.<\/p>\n

The toddler noticed her first.<\/p>\n

His sobbing slowed.<\/p>\n

He stared.<\/p>\n

Then his eyes widened.<\/p>\n

“Mommy?”<\/p>\n

The older boy froze.<\/p>\n

The world seemed to stop.<\/p>\n

Slowly\u2014<\/p>\n

he turned toward the woman.<\/p>\n

His heart pounding.<\/p>\n

His breath caught.<\/p>\n

The woman covered her mouth.<\/p>\n

Trying to hold back a sob.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”<\/p>\n

The older boy couldn’t speak.<\/p>\n

Couldn’t move.<\/p>\n

For weeks\u2014<\/p>\n

he had protected his little brother.<\/p>\n

Fed him.<\/p>\n

Comforted him.<\/p>\n

Carried him.<\/p>\n

Alone.<\/p>\n

The woman rushed forward.<\/p>\n

Dropping to her knees.<\/p>\n

Wrapping both boys in her arms.<\/p>\n

The toddler started crying again.<\/p>\n

But this time\u2014<\/p>\n

they weren’t tears of hunger.<\/p>\n

The older boy buried his face against her shoulder.<\/p>\n

Finally allowing himself to break.<\/p>\n

Because the person he’d been trying so hard to replace<\/p>\n

had finally come home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The older boy wiped his eyes. Trying to stay strong. Trying not to let the toddler see him cry. Then\u2014 a car stopped across the street. A woman stepped out. She froze. Staring at the two boys. The older boy didn’t notice. His attention was still on the toddler. Still on the empty food box. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}