The father refused to let go.<\/p>\n
His arms stayed wrapped around both girls.<\/p>\n
Afraid that if he did\u2014<\/p>\n
one of them might disappear again.<\/p>\n
People gathered quietly around them.<\/p>\n
Nobody spoke.<\/p>\n
Then\u2014<\/p>\n
the homeless girl slowly reached into her torn jacket.<\/p>\n
She pulled out a tiny red bracelet.<\/p>\n
Its threads were faded.<\/p>\n
Its knot nearly worn through.<\/p>\n
The father’s breath caught.<\/p>\n
His hands began to shake.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did you get that?\u201d<\/p>\n
The girl looked down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve always had it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lady who found me said it was on my wrist when I was a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
The father closed his eyes.<\/p>\n
A tear rolled down his face.<\/p>\n
He reached into his wallet.<\/p>\n
And carefully removed another bracelet.<\/p>\n
Identical.<\/p>\n
Except it was blue.<\/p>\n
The little girl in the blue coat stared at it.<\/p>\n
Confused.<\/p>\n
Her father whispered through his tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hospital tied these on you the day you were born.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne red.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne blue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two sisters looked at each other.<\/p>\n
Then slowly held the bracelets side by side.<\/p>\n
They fit together perfectly.<\/p>\n
Like they had never been meant to be apart.<\/p>\n
The homeless girl’s lips trembled.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo… I’m really your sister?\u201d<\/p>\n
The little girl smiled through her tears.<\/p>\n
Without saying a word\u2014<\/p>\n
she threw her arms around her.<\/p>\n
Holding her as tightly as she could.<\/p>\n
The father watched them.<\/p>\n
Unable to stop crying.<\/p>\n
Because after twenty years\u2014<\/p>\n
the two halves of his family<\/p>\n
were finally together again.<\/p>\n
And this time\u2014<\/p>\n
he wasn’t letting either of them go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The father refused to let go. His arms stayed wrapped around both girls. Afraid that if he did\u2014 one of them might disappear again. People gathered quietly around them. Nobody spoke. Then\u2014 the homeless girl slowly reached into her torn jacket. She pulled out a tiny red bracelet. Its threads were faded. Its knot nearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8354","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\/8354","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=8354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}