The manager set the cardboard box on the counter and pulled out a faded photograph from 1976. In it, my mother stood behind the same store’s old checkout counter, wearing a blue apron and holding the hand of a little girl. The cashier stared at Mom with tears in her eyes. “That girl is me,” she said. When she was six, her father disappeared and her mother was hospitalized for several months. My mother, who worked evenings at the store, quietly bought groceries for their family every week and never accepted repayment.
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