As I walked down the street, a picture caught my eye lying on the sidewalk. My heart nearly stopped when I saw it—it was a photo of my daughter, Anais, her bright, innocent smile staring back at me.
She was only 7 years old, and I immediately panicked. How did this photo end up here? Was something wrong with her? Had she been hurt or kidnapped? My mind raced, but before I could think too much, an elderly woman approached me.
“Is this yours, dear?” she asked softly, her voice calm and kind.
I nodded, clutching the photo tightly. “That’s my daughter… I don’t understand. How did this get here?”
The woman gave me a knowing smile. “I believe this picture belongs to you, yes, but not in the way you think.”
Confused, I stared at her, unsure what she meant. She explained, her words steady and deliberate. “You see, I’ve been keeping an eye on her. I’ve seen her walking home from school, and she dropped this earlier today, right here on the street.”
I felt a chill run down my spine. “You’ve been… watching her?”
The woman’s smile softened, and she nodded. “Just keeping her safe. I was waiting for the right moment to return the photo. But it seems I’ve kept it a little longer than I should’ve.”
I was stunned. “You’ve been following her?”
The woman’s eyes twinkled with a mix of mischief and something darker. “Not following, just… protecting. People lose things, and sometimes, things get dropped where they shouldn’t be. I took it because I thought you might be worried. But now that you’re here, I’ll let you have it back.”
I reached out, my hands trembling. As I took the picture from her, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. I wanted to ask more questions, but before I could speak, the woman simply turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd, leaving me with more questions than answers.
When I returned home, Anais was sitting on the couch, chatting with her brother as if nothing had happened. I breathed a sigh of relief, though the strange encounter still haunted me. How much had the woman seen? Why had she kept the photo? There was something unsettling about it, but in the end, my daughter was safe, and that was all that mattered.
Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder—what if the woman had been watching us all along? What if her presence in our lives was just the beginning of something I couldn’t yet understand?