Waitress finds phone left on a chair… and when she turned it on, she froze…

A fresh breeze, as if playfully relentless, tossed a stray lock of hair from her messy bun right into the eyes of a beautiful but poorly dressed young woman, walking down the avenue early on a weekend morning.

Yet, as if oblivious to it, deeply distressed Emily was barely aware. In those moments, her lock of hair served as a handkerchief, keeping tears from streaming down her cheeks. It was astonishing that such a youthful and beautiful person was out on the street at such an early hour, for women like her usually settled well in life and, needing nothing, slept until noon in their soft beds.

If not for her cheap everyday clothes, one might have assumed Emily had lingered too long returning from a nightclub. But, to her misfortune, she had no time for such carefree outings. Yet, it was precisely to such a place that the young woman was headed.

Not to relax, however, but to work. She was a simple waitress in a small but cozy diner in the heart of Chicago. It specialized in fresh breakfasts for businesspeople, as the city center was filled with office buildings, some of which operated even on weekends.

But today, Emily left home much earlier than usual. Circumstances forced her to do so. She could no longer stay under the same roof as her father.

Many times, the young woman had resolved to leave for good, but each time she stayed, unable to abandon her mother to fate, for it would have been far too hard on her. So, at 6 a.m. today, her father, returning from a night of drinking with his buddies, struck her mother again. Simply because she didn’t open the door at his first knock.

And yet again, her mother forgave the domestic tyrant. All because he immediately collapsed to the floor, clutching the spot where his heart should have been. But, judging by everything, the man had long lost it, having drowned that precious organ with his drinking pals.

Of course, it wasn’t remorse that made him collapse, writhing in pain, but the sight of his daughter appearing in the hallway with a rolling pin in hand, which she intended to use not for baking but to break the back of the man she had long come to despise. Yet, her mother, Sarah, stood between them, whispering pleadingly, “Don’t touch him, sweetheart.

Your father is very sick. You know he only started drinking because his life and career fell apart. And when he drinks too much, he can’t control himself.

But we must help your dad. That’s our lot as women.” “Sarah, get me my pill quick! I’m dying!” wailed James, still writhing in pain.

“Hey, get this crazy girl away, or she’ll cripple me like last time.” Her mother hurriedly fussed with the medicine, and Emily, feeling an overwhelming sense of hopeless despair, retreated to her room. Not long ago, her father had raised his hand against her too.

But one day, the grown daughter grew tired of enduring his abuse. Unlike her meek and endlessly devoted mother, Emily was a fully independent young woman who, to be free from her parents, balanced university studies with her waitressing job. True, most of her paycheck still went to household expenses, for when her father squandered his meager dollars, earned selling newspapers on suburban trains, he would then take her mother’s wages. A couple of years ago, her father had come home from one of his usual late-night outings and immediately began berating his daughter for not greeting him with a warm breakfast.

Gritting her teeth while her mother hung her husband’s clothes, soaked from an unexpected downpour, to dry, he stomped into the kitchen in his muddy shoes, leaving wet tracks behind. “Jimmy, why don’t you take off your shoes? I just cleaned the apartment yesterday,” came her mother’s timid voice from the hallway. But her husband only laughed in response.

“It’ll do you good to wipe down the place again, you lazy old hag, shake off some of that fat. How I ever fell for a slacker like you, I’ll never know. Can’t you see I’m starving? I worked all night with my buddies, earning money for the family. No time to mess with shoes.

Come on, girl, get food on the table; your dad’s hungry,” he roared. Emily promptly served him a steaming plate of hearty beef stew straight from the stove. But, as usual, her father was quick to complain.

Poking at the dish with his spoon, he said, “What’s this slop you’re serving the family breadwinner? Even pigs wouldn’t eat this, and it’s cold too.” With that, James dumped the stew on the floor. But in the next moment, he deeply regretted his actions, for Emily’s patience snapped.

Unable to tolerate the utter chaos she’d lived in nearly her whole life, the young woman lunged at her father, grabbed a plate from the table, and hurled it straight at his face. It shattered into pieces.

Instantly, tears streaming and wiping snot from his nose, he collapsed, wailing to no one in particular. “What’s this world coming to, good people, when your own daughter goes after her father, who raised and fed her, like some wild boar! Sarah, I can’t bear this shame! Get my pills quick!” His wife rushed to his side, fussing with medicines, bandages, and dressings. At some point, Emily felt disgusted watching her mother grovel before a monster who had no right to call himself a husband or father.

To avoid witnessing the pitiful scene, the young woman retreated to her room. But a few minutes later, her mother came in. Smiling at her daughter, she sat on the edge of the bed and said,

“Thank God, it all worked out. Your dad’s not too badly hurt. I cleaned him up; he’s sleeping now, poor thing.

Good thing your outburst didn’t give him a heart attack. He kept threatening to call the cops, but I barely talked him out of it. But do you realize what you’ve done, honey?” “You know, Mom, if I could go back, I’d do it again.

Without a second thought. I’d rather end up in jail than keep watching you suffer.” “I don’t understand why you’ve stayed with this man all these years.

You’re not just tormenting yourself but me too. Let’s leave him, go wherever our eyes take us. Living on the street would be better than this house.”

“Honey, how can you say that? He’s your father.” “And I’m Jimmy’s wife, duty-bound to honor and respect him. Especially since he’s so sick.”

“Imagine if we left; who’d take care of him?” “His heart’s so weak, it could finish him off. That’s my fate, and I can’t change it.” “Oh, Mom, how can you say such things? You’re a grown woman, talking such nonsense.

People make their own destinies.” That was the end of their conversation that day. Yet Emily achieved some progress in their family dynamics.

From then on, her father didn’t dare raise a hand to her, limiting himself to occasional venomous remarks. Things got a bit easier for her mother too. At least in Emily’s presence, James was somewhat more restrained in his emotions.

But the core problem remained unresolved. The women continued to suffer, enduring the domestic despot. This was what weighed on poor Emily now as she walked to work.

Fortunately, she soon pulled herself together. By the time she reached the diner, she was transformed, avoiding colleagues’ unnecessary questions, for she couldn’t lie, and telling the truth was shameful. Her shift started as usual, but just two hours in, after asking her boss for leave, she rushed home.

The knot began to unravel in a most unusual way, right at the diner where she worked. Early in her shift, Emily noticed a man in his thirties sitting alone in the corner. Constantly looking around nervously and checking his watch, he seemed to be waiting for someone.

Her coworker, who was serving him, was also taken aback by the odd guest. “You know, I think he’s some kind of crook,” said Jessica, smiling. “What makes you say that? He looks normal enough.

Besides, the days of bandits are long gone, aren’t they? Just because he’s glancing around doesn’t mean he stole something,” Emily replied, also smiling. “Well, maybe.

But there’s something off about his stare, sharp, like cactus spines. Feels like they’ll pierce right through you.”

But it seemed the waitresses worried for nothing. The shady guy, their only customer since the diner opened, soon left, thankfully without causing any trouble. But as Emily cleared his table of an unfinished coffee cup, she spotted an expensive mobile phone left behind.

Curiosity got the better of her. She desperately wanted to dig into someone else’s secrets. For some reason, she was sure the phone held the key to the stranger’s mystery.

“Listen, don’t do it! Turn the phone over to the manager, like the rules say, or you’ll get fired, you fool!” she scolded herself mentally. But, like most women, her curiosity overpowered common sense. Within minutes of finding the phone, she pressed the power button.

As she suspected, it was locked. But that was an easy fix, as many people use their birth year as a password. Typing in 1992, she gasped as the phone unlocked instantly.

But when Emily looked at the screen, she nearly fainted. The wallpaper showed a smiling beauty—herself, unmistakably. Recognizing her own reflection was impossible to miss.

Except this woman posed for a photographer on a luxurious resort beach she’d never visited. With trembling fingers, she navigated the phone’s menu, focusing first on social media and messaging apps.

Through them, she learned her real name was Olivia, studying to be a plastic surgeon, not an engineering designer. In just a couple of weeks, she was to marry Michael, the very man who’d sat at the table earlier. But the worst was yet to come, as their marital bliss would be short-lived; Michael planned to abandon her soon after the wedding, once he sold the business her father would hand over to him.

It was a generous gift David Anderson planned for the newlyweds, despite his future son-in-law, Thomas Miller, having no wealth of his own. He came from a poor family and was Olivia’s university professor. Olivia fell madly in love with him, and he seemed to reciprocate.

The reason was obvious. The young man was drawn to the crisp dollar bills owned by her father, who, like a king, promised his daughter’s suitor half his kingdom. The catch was that Michael already had a fiancée.

She had no objection to his little adventure, as his detour into another’s bed would last no more than six months and bring a fortune, allowing the couple to vanish on some golden coast. Emily learned all this from Michael’s messages with a vulgar woman, detailing how they’d swindle the poor girl. Emily hesitated to call the stranger but, summoning courage, dialed the number.

To her shock, the voice that answered was identical to her own. “Who are you?” Olivia asked, astonished. “I’m you.

Just turn on the video call, and you’ll see,” Emily replied to the stunned woman. For nearly half an hour, they stared at each other in silence, unable to speak. Soon, Olivia’s equally shocked father appeared on screen, speechless at the sight of Emily.

The mystery demanded an answer. And perhaps only one person could provide it—Sarah Johnson, Emily’s mother and, as she soon learned, the former lover of Olivia’s father. Sarah was not only shocked when a group of familiar faces showed up at her home but also immensely grateful for being saved from the brink.

James had gone berserk that moment, beating his wife mercilessly. So engrossed was he that he didn’t hear the apartment door open and uninvited guests enter.

What snapped him out of it was a heavy hand on his shoulder. Turning, eyes bulging, he barely managed, “You again!” Then his consciousness faded as he flew flat against the opposite wall, getting closely acquainted with it.

James woke up in a jail cell, delivered there by burly officers, for this time, demanding money for booze, he’d crossed all bounds and paid the price. Now, in lockup, he’d get proper care and stew at the right temperature. Sarah suffered greatly, but she was entirely to blame, for years ago, as the institute’s top beauty, two suitors vied for her.

She chose James, a promising football player and candidate for the national team, over Robert, a penniless student with nothing to his name. The hitch was that she left Robert, falling madly for another, while pregnant with Robert’s child. When he found out, he relentlessly pursued her, begging her to reconsider.

But she didn’t want to lose her new fiancé, who had no idea his bride-to-be carried another’s child. The real shock came when, visiting her mother in a rural Illinois town, labor started suddenly, and she gave birth to twin daughters. Her mother, a midwife at the local hospital who delivered the babies at home, devised a plan to rid Sarah of her persistent ex.

She suggested giving one of the girls to Robert to make him leave her alone. Sarah, consumed by her love for the football player, took the sin upon herself.

She couldn’t let James know the daughters weren’t his. James lived his whole life unaware of his wife’s secret. Both girls’ birth certificates listed Robert as the father.

But only she knew, carefully hiding the documents from James. Soon, worldly troubles ceased to matter to him, as the glory of a talented athlete consumed him, leaving his triumphs at the bottom of a shot glass. Naturally, there was no talk of the national team, and James was soon kicked off the team.

But he got a doctor’s note from the football club about heart issues to explain his failure. Barely rising from her hospital bed, Sarah fell to her knees before Robert and her daughters, begging forgiveness for what her reckless love had caused. Then Robert stepped forward.

He lifted his former love, hugged her tightly, and said softly, “We hold no grudge against you; we all know what true love is. I never married, hoping you’d come back to me one day.

I thought you’d been living abroad, but look how it turned out. For my daughter, I worked like a slave my whole life, and now her love nearly destroyed her, just like it did me. If not for her miraculous meeting with her sister, Michael would’ve taken half our fortune.

But now, thank God, he’s where scoundrels like him belong, right next to James.” Father and daughter cleverly outwitted the conman, slipping him flawed business documents he tried to use, drawing law enforcement’s attention.

Fortunately, one wedding fell apart, but another was soon planned. Back in the hospital ward, Robert proposed to Sarah again. How could she refuse when three pairs of eyes looked at her with hope and love? Her daughters, in unison, declared,

“Mom, say yes.” And that was her answer. Only then did Sarah breathe freely, thanking fate for giving her another chance at happiness.