😮 I removed the handcuffs from a prisoner and recognized the tattoo of my dead father. He died in Vietnam three months before I was born; I never knew him. 💔 And this 67-year-old man, accused of stealing medicine from a pharmacy, had the same military badge on his arm that my mother has had framed in the living room for forty-eight years.

I was going to help from now on.

And Tomás, now free, with nothing left to lose, looked at me and finally broke down completely.

“Honey. Before you go tell your mom about today… I have to tell you one more thing.”

“Not another one,” I said.

“Your dad didn’t choose.” I froze on the sidewalk.

“Inside, I let you tell it nicely and didn’t correct you, because continue reading …