A character’s first memory.

The morning sun spilled through the cracked blinds, casting stripes of gold across the worn wooden floor. Jonah’s eyes fluttered open, confused at first, then wide with wonder. The air smelled faintly of cinnamon and old paper, a smell he would come to recognize as the scent of home.

His small hands gripped the edge of a rough quilt, his legs dangling off the side of the bed, not quite touching the floor. Everything felt new—the coolness of the wood under his toes, the gentle hum of birds outside, the faint creak of the house settling.

Jonah didn’t know how old he was, but in this moment, he felt like the only person in the world.

His mother’s voice called softly from the kitchen, “Jonah? Breakfast’s ready, honey.”

She sounded kind but tired, like she had been carrying a heavy secret inside her chest all night. He wanted to run to her, to tell her he was awake and ready, but his legs felt too small, too weak.

Instead, he crawled across the floor, each movement an adventure. The quilt’s edge snagged on a loose nail, and he pulled it free, proud of the small victory.

At the kitchen door, Jonah stopped. The room smelled warm—like fresh bread and coffee and something he couldn’t name but made his heart beat faster. His mother stood by the stove, her back to him, tying an apron.

She turned, and her face broke into a smile that made his chest feel like it was full of sunlight.

“Good morning, little star,” she said.

He smiled back, shyly.

They sat together at the small table, the morning light catching the dust motes like tiny stars floating between them. Jonah’s mother placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him, but he didn’t want to eat. He just wanted to watch her.

Her hands were busy but gentle, stirring a pot, wiping the counter, humming a song Jonah couldn’t quite place.

“Do you want to hear a story?” she asked suddenly, her eyes shining.

Jonah nodded eagerly.

She sat beside him, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “When you were just a baby,” she began, “you had the biggest blue eyes I’d ever seen. You looked at the world like it was a mystery just waiting to be solved.”

He imagined those eyes, big and curious, staring at the sky.

“Your first word wasn’t ‘mama’ or ‘dada,’” she continued, “but ‘light.’ You pointed at the window, at the sun coming up, and said, ‘light.’ It was like you knew the world was full of things to discover.”

Jonah thought about light—how it made the shadows disappear and turned the walls golden. How it felt like a promise of something good.

That day, he learned about light—not just the sun’s rays, but the kind that lives inside people, the kind that guides you when the world feels too big and strange.

Years later, whenever Jonah felt lost or scared, he would remember that morning. The quiet kitchen, the smell of cinnamon, his mother’s smile, and the simple, fierce hope in a baby’s first word: light.