Lewis Baker was a single man who worked tirelessly, often more than he was asked to, just to keep his mind off the things that had recently happened in his life.
A year ago, Lewis was not a single man. In fact, he was married to a beautiful woman named Brittany, but things didn’t work out between them and they divorced.
The reason for this separation was that Lewis was raised in a large family and wanted to have children, but Brittany had her priorities and didn’t want that. She would never become a mom because she didn’t like children.
Lewis realized that their relationship wouldn’t work because of their differences, so he separated from her without hesitation. And after the separation, he hoped to find someone who would love children as much as he did…
One day, Lewis was on his way to work when he heard crying on the corner of the street he was crossing. He stopped and focused his attention on the noise. He realized that it was coming from the nearby alley.
He was late for work, but he couldn’t leave without knowing who the grieving soul was who was crying early in the morning, so he followed the sound. Eventually he came face to face with a boy sitting at the back of the alley, his head in his hands and crying.
Lewis felt sorry for the boy and wanted to help him. However, as he approached the boy, the boy abruptly raised his head, revealing his deep red eyes from crying, and stood up.
“Who – who are you?” he asked Lewis in a trembling voice.
“Don’t worry,” Lewis assured him. “I just want to help you. What’s a young kid like you doing out here by yourself?”
“Please take me away from them if you can! Please!” he pleaded with hopeful eyes.
“Who is he talking about?” Lewis wondered at the sight of the terrified 8-year-old boy. He decided to calm the youngster down and ask him what was wrong, but before he could do that, the boy started screaming.
“Oh no! They’re here!” he yelled, glancing over Lewis’ shoulder as if he had noticed someone, and then he took off running.
Lewis turned around, but he didn’t see anyone approaching them. He was puzzled as to why the boy was acting so strangely and decided to follow him.
“Hey, wait!” he yelled, “I can help you!”
But the kid wouldn’t stop. The boy kept running and eventually headed for a church. Lewis followed him inside, but couldn’t find him. He looked all over the church, but he wasn’t there. It was as if the boy had disappeared like a ghost.
But when he came out, Lewis spotted the boy crouched behind the church, crying his eyes out.
“Hey, hey, it’s all right,” he said as he approached him. “I’m here to help you. Are you okay?”
The boy looked up and tightened his arms around Lewis. “Please don’t leave me! I’m sorry I had to run away. Can you take me with you?” he sobbed.
Lewis felt a strange connection with the little boy and chose not to abandon him. He returned his embrace and said:
“Sure, I’ll help you. You don’t need to worry, okay? But first, you need to tell me what happened.”
The child slowly wiped away his tears.
“My name is Henry,” he sniffed, “I’m eight years old, and my mom and dad died a few months ago, so I have no one to take care of me.”
“But there’s got to be someone to take care of you, right? ” Lewis wondered. “Maybe your neighbors or someone else?”
Henry shook his head.
“Not really… I used to live in an orphanage, and some mean people took me away one day.”
“What?” Lewis’ eyes widened in shock. “You mean you were kidnapped?”
The boy nodded.
“I was walking by the orphanage, by myself. I don’t have any friends there, so no one plays with me or spends time with me. I’m always alone. So while I was walking, someone from behind put something on my nose. I smelled something bad and fell asleep. When I woke up, I saw them. I thought they were beggars, because they were very dirty. And I was right…”
“Jesus! ” Lewis couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “They didn’t hurt you, Henry, did they?” he asked the boy, concerned.
Suddenly, Henry’s eyes began to tear up.
“They were very bad people. They didn’t give me food and forced me to beg on the streets. They were always around me when I begged, and it was impossible for me to escape. But I escaped from them this morning… But when you came to help me, I saw them from a distance. They are looking for me!”
“That’s awful,” Lewis replied, with a heavy heart. “But Henry, why didn’t you go back to your orphanage? You’d be safer there than on the streets like this.”
“It’s in a different part of town,” he said sadly. “I don’t know how to get there by myself. I started crying, because I was afraid to be alone. I’m glad I met you! Please don’t leave me.”
“I won’t leave you. I promise,” Lewis told the boy and comforted him. “My name is Lewis, by the way. Come on, let’s tell the police everything so they can punish the bad guys, okay? And later we’ll go to your orphanage,” he added as he held out his hand for Henry to take, and the boy gripped it tightly.
When Lewis and Henry arrived at the police station, they learned that the authorities had already been looking for Henry. They thought he had escaped from the orphanage, but the reality was quite different. They took pity on the young child after hearing his tragic story.
They decided to escort him safely to the orphanage and thanked Lewis for his help.
“You can go, sir. We’ll take care of everything from now on,” the officer told him at the scene. However, Lewis insisted on accompanying Henry to the orphanage.
“I sincerely hope you don’t mind, officer. He’s still terrified, and I don’t want to leave him alone,” he told the officer, looking at Henry, who was sitting on a bench with another officer.
The officers had brought him a sandwich and chocolate milk, but he refused to eat. He seemed to have lost his appetite.
Given the boy’s desperate condition and Lewis’ compassion for him, the police officers allowed him to stay with Henry a little longer. And before leaving the police station that day, they encouraged Henry to help the sketch artist create sketches of the people he suspected of kidnapping him.
Henry was scared, but having Lewis by his side gave him courage, and he did what the officers told him.
Later, as Lewis dropped him off at the orphanage, Henry approached him and asked:
“Can you come visit me sometimes when you’re free? I like you, Lewis. You’ve helped me. Thanks for that!”
“I promise I’ll come see you, Henry,” Lewis said with a smile. “Don’t ever, ever think you’re alone, okay?”
“Thank you,” the boy whispered and went inside.
After getting home that day, Lewis was unable to forget Henry’s face. He had been such a workaholic, but when it came to Henry, he didn’t think twice about skipping work.
He received several calls on his phone from his boss, but he didn’t bother to take them, because he was only thinking about Henry and his safety.
The next day, he left his house much earlier than usual, just so he could see Henry before he went to work. The boy was jumping for joy when he saw him.
“You kept your promise, Lewis! Thank you!”
“I had to, Henry,” Lewis said, smiling as he handed him a box of chocolates and a pair of new shoes. He had noticed that Henry’s shoes were old and worn.
The smile Henry had on his face as Lewis helped him with the shoes meant a lot to Lewis. He couldn’t believe that his mind, for the first time, was not absorbed in work but in something else.
Lewis went to see Henry almost every day before work, and spending time with the toddler on weekends had become a tradition he would never break.
Soon after, he realized that he was so attached to Henry that he didn’t want to leave him. He decided to adopt him and asked Henry if he wanted him as a father.
“Will you live with me, Henry?” he asked the boy. “I want to be your father, but only if you would like to have me as your father.”
The young boy happily nodded and hugged him.
“I’d like to call you daddy, Lewis. Oops, DAD!” he chuckled. “Thank you so much for everything! I love you, Dad!”
Lewis was literally in tears as he hugged Henry back. He had always wanted to be a father, and now his wishes had been granted! The adoption process took some time to complete, but finally, Henry was legally Lewis’ son.
All the while, the police were still looking for the beggars who had taken Henry. Then one day Lewis received a call and was informed that the beggars had been arrested and that they had asked him to bring Henry to the police station to check their identity. Henry confirmed that it was them.
“Make sure they pay stiff penalties for what they did, officer,” Lewis told the officer before leaving. “I hope they rot in hell!”
After leaving the police station that day, both Henry and Lewis were relieved that the beggars who had tried to kidnap Henry had been arrested. They no longer had to worry and were happy with each other.
Since they have been living together, Lewis is no longer overworked and Henry is no longer lonely, and they spend their weekends watching movies or baseball games together. Henry also enrolled in a new school, and Lewis would take him there and pick him up after each day.
One day, Lewis met a woman at Henry’s school. She was the aunt of one of Henry’s classmates, Emily, who picked up her niece every day because the girl’s parents were always busy with work.
Lewis and Emily began spending time together, and before they knew it, they had fallen in love. After dating for a few months, they decided to get married, and when Lewis told Henry he was getting a new mother, the young boy was thrilled.
Lewis and Emily were married six months after they met and welcomed twins a year later. Lewis now has the beautiful family he always wanted, and is living a happily married life as a family man.
