Caroline studied the old man carefully. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something about him reminded her of someone else. But who? Caroline impatiently waited for her order to be ready as she speculated his identity. When her coffee was ready she sat down at a table next to the old man. The man was intently doing a crossword puzzle in the newspaper. Caroline did not want to bother him, so she just stared at him instead. He finally looked up from his puzzle and at first didn't notice Caroline. When he finally did, however, his entire face changed from confusion to happiness.
"Sarah?" The man asked in a soft voice. Now Caroline was confused, because she didn't know a Sarah.
"I'm sorry, sir, I think you have the wrong person," Caroline said awkwardly. The man still looked at her with a huge grin on his face.
"Hold on," the man said as he shuffled around in his pocket. Then he pulled out his wallet and started to look through that. I was starting to question if knowing who this man was really worth it. As I started to stand, he pulled out a folded picture. "Found it!" He said excitedly. He held it out for me to open. Hesitantly, I opened the picture, and there I was, as a little girl, sitting on an adult man's lap. It took me a minute, but when I finally realized what the picture meant, I stared at the man, waiting for an explanation.
He sighed, "When you were three years old, you walked away at a grocery store and you never came back," he said, getting emotional. "We thought we had lost you forever, We figured you had been kidnapped, but we never knew for sure." He looked at me with tears in his eyes, "Please come home, Sarah."
I looked back into those eyes that matched mine and just barely choked out, "Of course, Grandpa."
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