I grew up in an orphanage and was separated from my little sister when I was eight. I promised I’d find her—then spent the next 32 years failing.

Mia and I had nothing but each other. When a couple chose to adopt me but not her, I refused to go. I was told I didn’t have a choice. The day I left, she screamed my name as they pulled her from my arms. I kept repeating, I’ll find you. I promise.

They moved me to another state. My adoptive family didn’t want to talk about my past. When I turned eighteen, I returned to the orphanage. I tried again years later. Each time I was told Mia had been adopted, her name changed, her file sealed. No details. No confirmation she was even alive.

Last year, on a routine business trip, I stopped at a supermarket. In the cookie aisle, I noticed a little girl wearing a thin red-and-blue braided bracelet.

I had made two just like it as a child—one for me, one for Mia.

Her mother walked up. Something about her face made my chest tighten. When I asked where the bracelet came from, she said quietly it was given to her long ago… in a children’s home.

Her sister’s name, she said, was Elena.

Mine.

We sat in a tiny café, crying over bad coffee, piecing together stolen years. She hadn’t forgotten me. Neither had I.

I kept my promise.