Mother Orders Little Daughter to Wait near Church, Then Disappears without a Trace — Story of the Day

A woman abandons her little girl outside a church, but twenty years later, the daughter is still looking for her — and then she finds her.

Sometimes there are truths so dark and painful we just can’t face them, and that was what happened to Carly DIngles. When Carly was 5, her mother took her for a drive in her big red car.

They drove very far from the streets Carly knew until they came to a big white church standing in a green field. “Carly, honey,” her mom said. “You wait right here, baby, and momma’s gonna be right back!”

Then her mom kissed her on her cheek and climbed into the car, all those bracelets she liked so much jangling, and drove off, her pretty yellow hair flowing like a flag in the wind.

That was how Carly would remember her mom, driving off, her hand with the jangling bracelets waving in the air, and that yellow hair streaming back. Carly watched until her mom’s car shrank to a dot on the road, and sat down on the church steps.

She waited and waited, but mom didn’t come back, and no one else came by. Then when the sun was very high and Carly was getting really thirsty, a pretty black lady came to the church carrying an armful of beautiful flowers.

“Child,” she cried. “What are you doing here in the sun?”

“I’m waiting for my mom,” Carly explained. “She said she’d be right back.”

The lady was muttering and fussing and putting her hand on Carly’s forehead and saying it was too hot. She went back to her car and came back with a handful of peaches and a bottle of water. “Now you sit over here where there is shade,” she told Carly. “And you have some water and a peach, and I’ll be right back.”

The lady took the flowers inside and came back with a tall man in a black dress (he later explained that it wasn’t a dress and he was a priest, but it looked like a dress to Carly). The lady and the priest argued a lot, then the lady made a phone call.

It was almost dark when a thin lady and a police officer arrived and took Carly away. Carly kept saying she had to stay because her mom was coming, but no one listened.

Carly was taken to an orphanage....