short series

Dad, Don’t Cry

share time: 2026-01-02 12:33:42

When I was little, I squatted by the potato basket with the baked sweet potato Dad gave me, selling potatoes with him on the street corner—until a human trafficker lured me away with candy. Dad searched for me like a man possessed: missing person notices on telephone poles faded, and his fingers grew calluses from rummaging through every market’s potato piles. I hid a small potato pendant I’d stolen from the basket in my adoptive home, touching it every night to recall Dad’s warmth. Fifteen years later, I saw an old potato seller at the market entrance—his back hunched like that old basket, with the red string I’d woven still on his wrist. When I called “Dad,” the weight in his hand clattered to the ground. Tears filled his wrinkles, but he smiled and said: “My baby’s finally home.”

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