I saw my father eating alone in the shopping centre

Dear Delyara, My father and I have not spoken in three years. He disowned me after I married a man he refused to accept. Today, I saw him in the food court eating soup by himself. He looked smaller than I remembered. His hair has gone almost completely white, and he was wearing the brown jacket my mother used to complain was too old. I stood behind a pillar for fifteen minutes watching him tear bread into pieces before dipping each piece into the soup. He has done that my whole life. I could have walked over. I imagined saying, “Hi, Dad,” and imagined every possible version of his face. Instead, I stayed hidden. Before leaving, he took two sugar packets from the table and put them in his pocket. My mother used to tease him for stealing sugar from restaurants. She has been dead five years. I nearly followed him then, because suddenly he looked less like the father who rejected me and more like a widower carrying tiny habits no one else notices. I did not. I went home to my husband and told him I had seen Dad. He asked whether I spoke to him. I said no. What I did not say was that I wanted to sit across from my father so badly that my whole body hurt, and still I could not risk hearing him choose pride over me again.