The Yellow Duck
The first time I saw Nura’s name again, it wasn’t in a message or on a package—it was on the scrolling news ticker under a muted TV at the library. For a second, I thought I’d imagined it. Same name. Same town. Something about a fire in Tarnów, a woman and her daughter.
The words blurred before I could read more. I stood frozen, a half-shelved stack of books in my hands, the air heavy with a strange, sharp stillness. It wasn’t fear exactly—just the unmistakable sense that life was about to twist in a way I couldn’t undo.
Weeks earlier, while sorting through Reina’s closet, I’d posted a small giveaway: a bundle of 2–3T clothes, free to anyone who needed them. Minutes later, a message arrived. Her name was Nura. Life was hard, she said. Her little girl had nothing warm to wear. Could I mail the box? She promised to pay me back “when she could.”
I almost ignored it. But something tugged at me—maybe grief over my mother, who had just passed, or the fragile imbalance of my own life. I sealed the box, paid the postage myself, and addressed it simply: “Nura, Tarnów.”
Then I moved on.
A year later, a package arrived at my door. Inside were three little dresses I remembered, freshly washed and folded. On top lay a note, letters blocky and trembling:
“You helped me when I had no one. I wanted to return what I could.”
Beneath the dresses was a small crocheted duck—yellow, slightly lopsided. I hadn’t told anyone about that duck; it had been my grandmother’s, a relic of my own childhood. Seeing it again knocked the breath out of me.
The note continued:
“I’ve been through hell this year. I wouldn’t have made it without the kindness of a stranger. This duck sat on my daughter’s nightstand. She said it kept the bad dreams away. She’s better now, and I think it’s time it came home.”
I sat on the kitchen floor and cried—the quiet, messy kind that loosens things long buried.
When I mailed that box, I was barely holding myself together. Reina had just turned four and grown overnight. I was working part-time at the library, numb from my mother’s sudden stroke. Elion worked nights; we were two silhouettes passing each other in the hallway. Giving away clothes wasn’t noble—it was an attempt to bring order to life unraveling at the seams.
At the bottom of the note was a phone number. If you ever want to talk. Or visit. Door’s open.
Usually, these stories end there: a gift disappears into the world. But the duck, the handwriting, that single word—home—tilted something inside me. I dialed.
Nura answered on the second ring. She sounded younger than I imagined, soft, carrying a weariness I recognized instantly. We talked for forty-three minutes. She told me about the man she’d left—a charmer who turned cruel once she was pregnant. She’d run with a duffel bag and a toddler, landing in a shelter with nothing but a phone and shame. She had almost not messaged me.
“I was embarrassed to ask,” she said. “But my little one was shivering in pajamas too small.”
We didn’t let the thread go cold. Photos first—her daughter Maïra, a whirlwind of curls, in the pink hoodie I recognized. I sent job leads, apartment listings, and half-bad memes at midnight. Reina started calling her “the duck lady.”
By spring, Nura found a part-time bakery job and moved into a small subsidized flat.
“Can we visit?” I typed before thinking twice.
She said yes.
Reina and I took the train in the rain. I fretted like a teenager meeting a pen pal. But Nura greeted us with a smile that made the nerves disappear. She hugged me like family. Her apartment was small but bright, filled with the scent of bread and lavender soap. Maïra peeked from behind her leg, and within minutes, the girls were sprawled on the floor with crayons, trading inside jokes and laughter.
Nura made soup with hand-pinched dumplings. We stood shoulder to shoulder at the stove, talking about mothers, fears, and the yearning for more than survival. On the train home, Reina slept against my arm, fingers curled around the yellow duck.
“Maïra says the duck makes you brave,” she murmured.
Visits became routine. Once, they came to us, and the girls wandered the zoo hand in hand under a patch of rare sunlight. Some months later, winter hit hard. The library cut my hours; Elion was recovering from knee surgery. Savings were gone. I texted Nura a joke about learning to live on toast. She didn’t laugh.
“Send me your account,” she wrote. Two days later, €300 arrived.
I called, voice shaking. “Nura, you can’t—”
“You helped me when you didn’t have to,” she said. “Let me help you.”
It didn’t fix everything. But it reminded me I wasn’t alone.
Spring again. We celebrated Maïra’s sixth birthday at the park—paper crowns, icing-streaked smiles. Nura pulled me aside, eyes shining.
“I’m applying to culinary school.”
I cheered so loudly a pigeon flew in panic. She’d been baking since dawn in a rented kitchen, taking tiny orders. She was ready.
In quiet, circular ways, we’ve come full circle. I thought I was just clearing a closet. Instead, I made room for a friend, a sister, a bigger life. Reina and Maïra now call each other cousins. The duck sits on Reina’s nightstand most nights, sometimes on mine when darkness feels heavy. We pass it back and forth, a silent promise.
Whenever I hesitate to answer a small plea for help, I remember that duck. Small acts of kindness are threads. Invisible, but strong. They stitch strangers into something that starts to look like family.
Conclusion
Sometimes I still think of that first message—“Could you mail the box?”—and how close I came to ignoring it. One tiny decision, almost nothing, rerouted both our lives. The duck remains, a reminder that kindness isn’t grand gestures; it’s quiet threads, carrying echoes of hope across the spaces we never thought they would reach.