Once seated at the kitchen table, Sarah carefully placed the backpack down like it contained something sacred.
“Open it,” she said softly.
Inside were knitting needles, purple and white yarn, and a half-finished stuffed unicorn wrapped carefully in tissue paper.
Haley stared at it in confusion.
“Craft class,” Sarah explained quickly. “Ms. Bell said handmade gifts meant more because they took time and love. Randy wanted to make this for you.”
“A unicorn?” Haley whispered. “Randy loved dinosaurs.”
Sarah nodded tearfully.
“He said you liked unicorns.”
Months earlier, Haley had casually mentioned liking unicorns while drinking from an old chipped unicorn mug.
Randy remembered.
Beneath the yarn sat a card written in Randy’s uneven handwriting.
Mom, it’s not done yet.
Don’t laugh. Sarah says the horn is the hardest part.
I love you more than cereal breakfast.
Love, Randy.
Haley broke apart reading it.
Then Sarah quietly whispered, “There’s more.”
Inside the backpack was another folded paper.
This one made Haley’s blood run cold.
Dear Mom,
I’m sorry I ruined the Mother’s Day wall.
I promise I’m not bad.
Love, Randy.
Confused, Haley asked Sarah what it meant.
What the little girl revealed next changed everything.
Randy had not ruined the classroom display.
Another student named Tyler accidentally spilled paint onto the Mother’s Day decorations, but Ms. Bell blamed Randy instead because glue was on his hands after he had been helping Sarah with the unicorn.
Sarah explained through tears that Randy kept insisting he hadn’t done it.
“He said, ‘My mom knows I don’t lie,’” she whispered.
But Ms. Bell forced him to write the apology anyway.
Then Sarah revealed something even more devastating.
Right before Randy collapsed, he told her his chest was “doing the squished thing again.”
Again.
Haley nearly collapsed herself hearing those words.
Randy had apparently been hiding chest pain because Haley had been sick with the flu, and he didn’t want to worry her before Mother’s Day.
Sarah tried helping him the only way she knew how.
She told him to drink water.
Moments later, Randy fell from his chair.
Paramedics rushed in.
Chaos exploded around the classroom.
And while the adults focused on the emergency, Sarah quietly took Randy’s backpack because she remembered his final request.
“Guard the unicorn until Mother’s Day.”
So she did.
