Carly Dingles was just five years old when her mother took her on a long drive in her big red car. Carly loved car rides; she loved watching the trees blur past the window, feeling the wind from the open window ruffle her hair, and most of all, being with her mom. Her mother was beautiful, with golden hair that shone in the sunlight, and she always wore lots of jingling bracelets on her wrists. Carly liked the sound they made, like tiny bells dancing.
That day, they drove far, farther than Carly had ever been before. The familiar streets faded away, and soon they were passing through open fields and countryside roads. Eventually, they stopped in front of a big white church standing alone in a field of green. Carly looked around. There was no one else there.
Her mother turned to her with a bright smile. “Carly, honey,” she said softly, tucking a strand of Carly’s brown hair behind her ear. “You wait right here, baby, and Momma’s gonna be right back.”
She kissed Carly’s cheek, her bracelets clinking as she pulled away. Carly smiled up at her, trusting. She watched as her mother got back into the car, her golden hair catching the sunlight, flowing like a banner in the wind. The last thing Carly saw was her mother’s arm waving out the window, bracelets jingling. The red car drove off down the road, getting smaller and smaller until it was nothing but a tiny dot on the horizon.
Carly sat down on the church steps, kicking her feet and waiting. The sun moved higher in the sky. She waited some more. The breeze was warm, and she was getting thirsty, but she wasn’t worried. Her mother had said she would be back.
But as the hours stretched on, doubt began creeping in. The sun was now high overhead, and the warmth had turned into an unbearable heat. Carly’s throat was dry, her stomach ached, and she was starting to feel dizzy.
Then, she heard footsteps. A woman was approaching, carrying an armful of colorful flowers. She was tall, with dark skin, and kind eyes.
“Child,” the woman exclaimed, startled. “What are you doing out here in this heat?”
Carly looked up at her, relief flooding her small body. “I’m waiting for my mom,” she said confidently. “She said she’d be right back.”
The woman frowned, concern flashing across her face. “Oh, honey…” she muttered, placing a gentle hand on Carly’s forehead. “It’s too hot for you to be sitting here like this. Come on, let’s get you some water.”
She disappeared to her car and returned with a bottle of water and a handful of ripe peaches. “Now, you sit in the shade, sweetheart,” she instructed. “Drink some water and have a peach. I’ll be right back.”
Carly obediently took a sip of water, the cool liquid soothing her parched throat. She nibbled at the peach, its sweet juice dripping down her chin. The woman returned a few moments later, but this time, she wasn’t alone. A tall man in a long black robe walked beside her. Carly thought it looked like a dress, but he later told her he was a priest.
The woman and the priest spoke in hushed, serious voices. Carly couldn’t hear everything, but she caught words like “abandoned” and “orphanage.” The woman shook her head and made a phone call. Carly waited.
By the time the sun had dipped below the horizon, a thin lady and a police officer arrived. Carly was scared.
“We need to take you somewhere safe,” the lady told her kindly. But Carly didn’t want to go. “No!” she protested. “I have to stay here! My mom is coming back!”
The officer and the lady exchanged a sad glance, but they didn’t argue. Instead, they gently took Carly’s hand and led her away. As the car pulled out of the church driveway, Carly kept turning her head, hoping, praying that her mother’s red car would appear. But it never did.
Carly was placed in an orphanage, but she refused to believe she belonged there. “I’m not an orphan!” she would scream whenever someone tried to talk to her. “My mom is coming back for me!”
The other children stayed away from her. No one wanted to be friends with the angry, bitter girl who kept waiting for someone who never came. No one except Peter.
Peter was a frail boy with pale skin and tired eyes. The other kids whispered that he had a “bad heart.” It didn’t mean he was cruel—it meant his heart didn’t work the way it should. He couldn’t run, couldn’t play like the others. Instead, he made paper planes. He would sit on the staircase, folding them carefully, testing how high and far they could fly.
One day, as Carly sat on the bottom step, crying silently, a small paper plane floated down to land at her feet. She picked it up and noticed something written on the wings.
“You’re gonna be alright.”
Carly’s head snapped up. “Did you make this?” she asked.
Peter smiled. “Yeah. I can’t run, so I make things that can fly high instead.”
That was the beginning of their friendship. Over the years, whenever Carly was sad, Peter’s paper planes would find her, carrying silent encouragement.
When Carly turned seventeen, she decided she was finally old enough to find her mother. She demanded every piece of information the orphanage had about her past. “Carly,” the director said gently, “you have a bright future ahead, a scholarship—”
“No!” Carly shouted. “I know my mom is looking for me!” She stormed out, ignoring the director’s sigh.
Outside, a paper plane landed in her lap. But this time, Carly was too angry. She crushed it in her fist. “Stop it, Peter!” she screamed. “Your stupid planes don’t help me! I hate them! I hate you!”
Peter never sent another plane after that.
Carly searched for two years, and finally, she found her mother in a trailer park outside St. Louis. She knocked on the door, heart pounding. The woman who answered didn’t look like the mother she remembered. Her golden hair was now stiff and brittle, her face older, harder.
“Yes?” the woman asked, eyes squinting suspiciously. “Who are you? I’m not buying anything.”
“Mom?” Carly whispered. “It’s me, Carly.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be… What the hell are you doing here?”
“I came looking for you,” Carly said, her voice trembling. “I know you came back for me, but I was gone.”
The woman laughed, a cruel, empty sound. “Came back? Sweetheart, I shook the dust off that town before sunset. My new man didn’t want another man’s kid.”
Carly felt like the air had been knocked out of her. “You left me?” she choked out. “A five-year-old outside a church?”
The woman smirked. “Ain’t they always saying kids are God’s gift? I just gave you right back.”
Carly turned and ran. Three days later, she was back at the orphanage. “I was hoping to see Peter,” she told the director.
The woman’s face fell. “Carly… Peter’s heart gave out. Just a few weeks after you left.”
Carly collapsed into the garden, sobbing. “Oh, Peter,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
And then, a golden leaf twirled down, landing softly on her lap—shaped exactly like one of Peter’s planes. Maybe it was just the wind. Or maybe, it was Peter telling her that everything would be alright.