A hungry little girl shared her only sandwich with a boy in a wheelchair. She had no idea that the man watching her from a distance was a millionaire and the father of the boy, who would change her life forever.

Lupita went through another garbage bag behind the La Merced market, her small fingers searching through wrappers and waste, hoping to find something edible to take home. At just 11 years old, she knew every corner perfectly and, since she threw away food that was still usable, her tired eyes showed a maturity inappropriate for her age—a result of almost two years living on the streets since her father passed away and the family lost everything.

The scorching sun punished her brown skin as she wiped the sweat from her forehead with the worn sleeve of a t-shirt several sizes too big for her thin body. When her hands found a nearly untouched ham sandwich, wrapped and apparently discarded by mistake, her eyes shone as if she had found a treasure. Two days of eating only the leftovers she got from that same market had left her stomach aching and her head dizzy.

Lupita put away the precious sandwich in the pocket of her worn pants, looking around to make sure no one had seen her. The vendors there were usually nice and pretended not to notice her, but the manager had already threatened to call the police several times.

Lupita walked away from the market, crossing busy streets where people rushed by without noticing her. It was as if she were invisible in that world of adults busy with their own lives. Her bare feet were already calloused, immune to the pebbles and hot asphalt that others wouldn’t stand.

When she reached Plaza Hidalgo, she decided to sit down to rest and eat her precious food. Her stomach was growling, begging for food, but she knew she should save half of it to take to her little siblings, who were waiting with their sick mother under the inner circuit bridge.

It was then that her eyes fell on a boy sitting alone in a wheelchair, watching the others play. He seemed to be almost her age, maybe a little older. He was wearing nice, clean clothes, but his face reflected a deep sadness that Lupita recognized immediately. It was the same kind of loneliness she saw every day in the makeshift mirror she kept among her few belongings.

The boy had close-cropped brown hair and eyes that seemed lost in distant thoughts. His hands rested motionless on the wheels of the chair, as if he had given up on moving. For a few minutes, Lupita simply watched, saw how the other children played without inviting him, how the nannies and mothers sitting on the benches gave him pitying glances, and how he pretended not to care. But Lupita knew that look too well to be fooled.

The boy’s stomach growled loud enough for her to hear, and that’s when she noticed he’d been there for a long time without anyone bringing him anything to eat or drink, despite the intense heat.

Lupita looked at her cake and then at the boy. No matter how hungry she was, something inside her was moved. Without a second thought, she got up and walked towards him, her bare and dirty feet contrasting with the shiny new tennis shoes of the boy in the wheelchair.

“Do you want to share with me? You look like you’re hungry,” said Lupita, holding out half of the cake towards him. Her voice was soft and husky, little used in recent days.

The boy looked at her surprised, as if he wasn’t used to someone addressing him directly. His eyes widened, alternating between Lupita’s dirty face and the cake in her hand.

“Are you offering me food?” he asked incredulously. “But you seem to need it more than I do.”

Lupita shrugged, holding her hand outstretched. “We all need to eat, and sharing makes food taste better. My mom always says that.”

The boy hesitantly accepted the offer. His clean fingers briefly touched hers, dirty from days of not having a proper bath.

“Thank you, my name is Diego.”

“I’m Lupita,” she replied, sitting on the floor next to the wheelchair. Without asking permission, she broke her half into two smaller pieces, putting one in her pocket. “I have to take some for my little brothers.”

What neither of them realized was that a few meters away, partially hidden by a leafy tree, a man in a fine suit was watching the scene intently. Alejandro Montero, 42 years old, successful businessman and owner of one of the largest construction companies in the country, had tears in his eyes as he watched his son Diego accept food from the hands of a homeless girl.