AMBER'S COFFEE IN DISGUISE

It was raining heavily that day and all one could see were those dark clouds with thunder covering the beautiful city of Florence. While people were running all over the place nobody noticed a baby’s cry. This baby was kept in a basket and left outside the Santa Croce Church’s door. In the midst of all the thunder and havoc, nobody observed that little mite until the priest heard her cry from inside and opened the door. He was not shocked to see a baby left outside the church as he had witnessed it before. Nonetheless, what he was surprised to see was a chain with a brown stone pendant hung around the baby’s neck. Soon he understood that her parents wanted her to be identified when they would return for her one day. Hence he named her Amber in relation to that brownish stone hung around her neck.

As days turned into months and months into years, everyone in the church became fond of Amber. The priest used to thank God for making this child laugh and create such a pleasant atmosphere throughout the church. One day as the priest was passing by he noticed Amber giving a rose to each visitor that entered the church. So he approached her to ask her if there was any particular reason behind this kind gesture. Amber smilingly looked into the priest’s eyes and said, “yes indeed, there is a very special reason why I gift each visitor a flower. The reason is that any of these visitors could be my parents coming here in search of me.” The priest’s heart melted as he saw how much affection and dedication tiny Amber had for those same parents who discarded her 6 years ago. The only time she used to get upset was when she smelt fresh coffee beans in the morning as coffee used to be brewing in the kitchen. For this very reason she used to evade going out to play in the morning and early evening as the smell of coffee coming from the nearby coffee shops repelled her.

 

The priest could never understand her disgust for coffee and found her behaviour very weird but just laughed it out considering it a temporary characteristic of that tiny child. As time passed by, Amber continued to gift each visitor a flower with that excitement and hope in her innocent eyes. She looked at everyone with that look of a lost child in search of her parents. Unfortunately as years flew by, so did that look in her eyes just vanish. Now 15 years had passed and it was time she accepted the fact that her parents would never come back for her. Amber got tired of waiting for them, so she stopped gifting flowers to the visitors who came to the church.  Every night she used to talk herself to sleep, explaining herself that even if her parents left her it wasn’t the end of the world. God was always there to protect her and take care of her. Yet one thing that still hadn’t changed was her distaste for coffee, and she never tried to even understand why she hated it so much. It was ironic how a person could hate something without even trying it.

The next morning as she opened the door of the church, trying to get away from that morning coffee smell, she found a note on the footsteps. At first, she thought it to be some random note that just flew and landed there outside the church. But then she grabbed it and wanted to read it as it was a brown-colored note. Amber kept thinking to herself what could the reason be behind choosing a brown colored note. As she opened it she read, “We are sorry for the mistake we committed 15 years ago…we are sorry for leaving you behind, but we will soon come for you.” Amber’s heart began to beat with excitement and anxiety as this note was written by her parents. Finally, they left a note for her and would soon come to get her. Amber ran to show this note to the priest and then both of them rejoiced and thanked God. For a week Amber kept on opening the church door with the hope to find another note or possibly see her parents, but nothing happened. Then one of the sister’s handed another brown colored note affirming that she found it outside the door. When she opened the note she read that her parents will not be able to come to the church to get her as they are extremely ashamed of leaving her outside the church when she was a baby. So the next morning she was to go to the coffee shop right in front of the church and they would meet her there. All Amber could think of was why she had to undergo this slow poison of going to a coffee shop. She couldn’t even tell them to meet elsewhere as she didn’t know anything about them neither how to contact them. At night, while she sat next to the window and looked at the stars, the priest came and told her that its high time she faced this horrible feeling she had towards coffee. It was a choice that she had to make of facing coffee and finally meeting her parents or of losing the only chance to ever meet them for a silly reason. So the next day she decided to go to the coffee shop and as she entered the café she covered her nose. Amber looked all around the coffee shop but didn’t see any couple, but then she noticed a coffee cup with a baby’s picture on the froth.

Amber decided to sit at that table and stare at the coffee in search of some other hint. To her bewilderment she found another brown note underneath the coffee cup. As she lifted the coffee cup she read the note that said, “welcome dear amber, we are your parents. We were coffee bean pikers all our lives so we couldn’t afford to take care of our child. But today we are the proud owners of this coffee shop and very much prepared to take care of our beautiful Amber.” Tears quickly ran down her cheeks as she was trying to react to all of this. Then she ran towards the counter and saw a couple smiling at her, and as she hugged them tightly she even welcomed the smell of coffee into her life. Today Amber works with her parents at that café and has learnt to overcome this hatred towards coffee as it is coffee that became a blessing in disguise and united her and her parents. There is always a hidden reason to a certain like or dislike in your life, such as in Amber's case it was the coffee connected to the parents.