A poor mother buys a children’s backpack at a flea market and discovers a tiny purse inside containing an amulet and Japanese coins. She decides to find its owner and return it, unaware that it will change her life forever.
Rachel met her husband, Fred, in foster care. Both were orphaned at a young age and soon became each other’s entire lives. They married shortly after finishing high school and had a baby girl named Alicia a year later.
Fred worked as a handyman in Denver, Colorado, and Rachel was a stay-at-home mom. The man worked very hard for his family, but they were barely getting by. Rachel suggested to Fred that she could work as a part-time nanny to help him financially, but they had no other family to rely on to care for Alicia.
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When Alicia turned 6, Fred suddenly passed away due to a heart attack. Doctors said he’d been overworking himself, and that took a toll on his body. Rachel didn’t even have the time to mourn for her husband’s loss and started looking for jobs to support her daughter. A few months later, she landed one as a waitress at Cuisine Wave, a small resto-bar not far from her home.
One day, Alicia returned from school and demanded that she needed a new school bag. The previous one had several holes in it that Rachel had stitched them with cloth pieces, but it really needed to be replaced this time.
Unfortunately, they were short on cash that month, so Rachel decided to go to a flea market and buy one there. She walked along rows of stalls and saw several pretty bags that she wanted to buy for Alicia, but her budget didn’t allow her for that, and she continued walking through the market until she came across a gorgeous tiny pink backpack.
It appeared to be very old, but it was also very beautiful to look at, and it was just as much as Rachel could afford to pay, so she bought it.
At home, when Alicia returned from school, Rachel surprised her with the new bag. The little girl was overjoyed and began hurriedly transferring all of her books to her new bag when something fell from inside. “Mom! Did you buy this for yourself?” she inquired, picking up an old-fashioned maroon silk clutch.
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“A purse?! No, it’s not mine, honey. Where did you find it?”
“It was inside my new school bag, mom. I thought it was yours.”
Rachel felt a certain weight in her hands as she held the purse. She opened it and found a few Japanese coins and an amulet. The amulet had a silvery color and an intricate pattern, with a photograph of a couple and a child inside.
Rachel carefully placed the contents on a table and turned the backpack over to see if there was anything else inside. Suddenly, a small, partially-torn address tag fell to the floor. Rachel picked it up and noticed it bore an address somewhere in Colorado. “Amanda Turner, 60 Oakland Ave, #216, Colorado,” it read.
Rachel figured it must be the owner’s address and decided to return the purse to her.
Rachel’s trip to the address the next day led her to a massive mansion that was for sale. She inquired about Amanda from her next-door neighbor, an elderly lady named Mrs. White, and discovered that she had died a few months ago and that her husband, Ashton, and their daughter, Lexi, had relocated to Wheat Ridge.
Rachel told Mrs. White she had something to return to Ashton and needed to find him. The elderly lady was generous enough and gave her Ashton’s new address.
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The next day, Rachel applied for a leave of absence and hopped on a cab with her daughter, determined to meet Ashton. A few hours later, she arrived at the new address, and a tall, slender man, somewhat in his 30s, answered the door.
“Are you Ashton Tuner? Amanda Turner’s husband?”
“Yes, how may I help you?”
“Hi, I’m Rachel Wesley. I found a clutch inside a bag I bought for my daughter a couple of days ago. It had your wife’s address in it.”
“Oh, so that’s where it was!” Ashton gasped. “Thank you so much! I was looking for it everywhere. Please come in.”
As they settled inside, Ashton told Rachel that the amulet and coins belonged to Amanda, who had died in a plane crash during a trip to Japan with her colleagues.
The purse and amulet were among Amanda’s belongings that cops recovered and returned to Ashton. Lexi had missed her mother so much that he decided to put the purse with the amulet in her backpack as a reminder of her. However, when they relocated to Wheat Ridge, he sold some of their old belongings, and somehow the backpack got into the mix, forgetting the purse and amulet were still inside.
“I’m so grateful to you for returning this. Lexi kept crying for days looking for this. I don’t even know how to thank you. Lexi missed her mom so much.”
“Oh, no need to thank me. I lost my husband, so I know what it’s like—when you and your child miss someone you’ll never get to see again. It hurts a lot,” Rachel replied. She remembered all the pain she and her child had gone through. Life had never been so cruel.
Suddenly, Ashton, noticing her anguish and understanding her like no one else, placed his hand over hers. She looked up at him, and something happened—a spark, like electricity. They both felt it. Rachel took a deep breath.
“This… this is probably so wrong. I can’t… I shouldn’t…” she thought, quickly pulling her hand back and clearing her throat.
“Emm, anyway, I’m glad to help, Ashton,” she said. Ashton smiled at her and Alicia.
“And how do I thank you, little one? Would you like some cookies and milk?” he asked Alicia with a grin.
“Oh no, that’s fine,” Rachel replied. “Please, don’t go to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Ashton said, heading to the kitchen. “You both brought me something that means the world to me. It’s the least I can do.”
A few minutes later, Ashton returned with cookies and milk for Alicia and two cups of tea for him and Rachel. They chatted for a bit before Rachel left, and soon they began meeting more often. Those moments turned into a friendship and, over the years, into love.
Then came the moment. They were living together by now. That day, as Rachel approached their house, she spotted something through the window. The entire living room was filled with rose petals, with candles lit all around. Ashton stood in the middle, down on one knee, holding a ring and looking at the door, waiting for Rachel. “Is he going to propose? Oh my God!” she thought, feeling a rush of joy. But before she could accept his hand and heart, she needed to do something. So Rachel sat down on the porch and looked up at the sky.
“Hi, Fred. I know you can hear me. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I still miss you, my love. The way you’d laugh after work, the way you’d mess up my hair. But after you died, I felt like I withered away. I didn’t want to live, didn’t want to feel happy, didn’t want to wake up in the mornings, just forcing myself to breathe for our child. But now… Ashton brought me back to life. So why do I feel so guilty? Guilty for moving on? If you can, give me a sign, Fred. Show me you let me go, that you’re not angry, that it’s okay for me to be happy,” she said, wiping away tears.
Then something incredible happened. A sudden autumn breeze swept through, lifting her hair and tousling it gently. Rachel smiled, feeling goosebumps.
“Thank you, Fred. Thank you,” she said, saying goodbye.
Now, she was ready to live again.
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