Everyone was drinking, drinking, bottles everywhere, but not a scrap of food in sight.
The house was full of guests, as it nearly always was.
“Everyones drinking, drinking, bottles piled high, but not a bite to eat. Not even a crust of bread to be found just cigarette butts and an empty tin on the table,” Leo muttered to himself as he scanned the room once more, but there was nothing worth eating.
“Alright, Mum, Im off,” the boy said, slowly pulling on his worn-out shoes.
He still hoped she might stop him, might say, “Where do you think youre going, love? Youve not eaten, and its freezing out. Sit tight. Ill make some porridge, send the guests packing, and clean up.”
He always waited for a kind word from her, but she wasnt one for gentleness. Her words were like thorns, sharp enough to make him curl up inside and wish he could disappear.
This time, he decided to leave for good. Leo was six years old and felt old enough. First, hed need some moneyenough for a bun, maybe even two. His stomach growled, demanding food.
He didnt know how to get money, but as he walked past the shops, he spotted an empty bottle half-buried in the snow. He remembered you could return bottles for cash. Slipping it into his pocket, he then found a crumpled bag near the bus stop and spent half the day collecting more.
Soon, the bag was heavy with clinking bottles. He imagined buying a soft, fragrant bun with raisins or jammaybe even custardbut worried that might cost too much. He kept searching.
He wandered into the train station. On the platform where men drank beer while waiting for their trains, Leo set down his heavy bag and darted off for another bottle. When he returned, a scruffy, angry man had taken his haul. Leo asked for it back, but the man glared so fiercely that the boy had no choice but to walk away.
His dream of a bun vanished like a mirage.
“Collecting bottles isnt easy,” Leo thought, trudging back through the snowy streets. The snow was wet and sticky. His feet were numb with cold. By the time it grew dark, he barely remembered stumbling into a stairwell, curling up against a radiator, and drifting into a warm sleep.
When he woke, he thought he was still dreamingit was warm, quiet, and cosy, and the air smelled delicious.
A woman walked into the room. She was beautiful and looked at him with such kindness.
“Well, lad,” she said, “warmed up? Had a good sleep? Come on, lets get some breakfast. I found you last night, curled up like a little stray in the stairwell. Brought you home.”
“Is this my home now?” Leo asked, hardly daring to believe it.
“If youve no home, then it is,” she replied.
What followed was like something from a fairy tale. This kind womanLillian, her name wasfed him, cared for him, bought him new clothes. Slowly, Leo told her everything about his life with his mother.
Lillian had a name that sounded magical to him. Hed never heard it before and decided only a good fairy could have such a lovely name.
“Would you like me to be your mum?” she asked one day, hugging him tight the way real, loving mothers do.
Of course, he wanted that. But
His happiness didnt last. A week later, his mother arrived, nearly sober but shouting at the woman who had taken him in. “No ones stripped me of my rights! Hes my son!”
As she led him away, snowflakes fell from the sky, and to Leo, the house he was leaving behind looked like a white castle dusted with enchanted snow.
Life got much harder after that. His mother drank. Leo ran away often, sleeping in train stations, collecting bottles to buy bread. He never made friends, never asked for help.
Eventually, his mother did lose her rights, and Leo was sent to a childrens home.
The saddest part was that he could never remember where that white castle-house was, the one where the kind woman with the magical name lived.
Three years passed.
Leo stayed quiet and kept to himself at the home. He loved to draw, always sketching the same thinga white house and falling snow.
One day, a journalist visited. The matron showed her around and introduced the children. When they reached Leo, she explained, “Hes a good lad, but he struggles to adapt. Were hoping to find him a family.”
The journalist smiled. “Im Lillian,” she said.
Suddenly, Leo came alive. The silent, withdrawn boy began talking excitedly, telling her all about the other kind Lillian hed once known. His eyes shone, his cheeks flushed. The matron watched in amazement.
That nameLillianwas the key to his heart.
The journalist couldnt hold back tears as she listened. She promised to write about him in the local paper, hoping the other Lillian might read it and realise Leo was waiting for her.
She kept her word. And then, a miracle happened.
That woman wasnt a regular reader, but it was her birthday, and her coworkers had gifted her flowers wrapped in newspaper. As she unwrapped them, she spotted the headline: “Kind Woman Named LillianBoy Named Leo Is Looking for You. Please Respond!”
She read it and knew it was himthe boy shed once carried home from the stairwell, the one shed wanted to adopt.
Leo recognised her instantly. He rushed into her arms. Everyone criedLeo, Lillian, the staff watching.
“Ive waited so long for you,” he whispered.
They couldnt take him home right awaythere were proceduresbut she promised to visit him every day.
Years later, Leo was 26. Hed graduated from technical college, was engaged to a lovely girl, and was full of life. He adored his mother, Lillian, whod given him everything.
When he was older, she told him the truthher husband had left her because they couldnt have children. Shed felt worthless until the night she found a boy in a stairwell and warmed him with her love.
After his mother took him back, shed thought, “Maybe it wasnt meant to be.”
But fate had other plans.
Leo once tried to find his birth mother but learned shed long since moved away with a man fresh out of prison. He didnt search further.
Why bother? He already had everything he needed.
