The Hero No One Knew

Dad had a sweet tooth for Laffy Taffys," Jarrett Payton says. "The banana ones. My mom used to go to Sam's Club and buy the big buckets. About two years after my father died, we moved out of our house. We were packing up everything, and one of the things we had was this big vase in the atrium that had been there for years. It was sitting on top of something, so you never got to see in it because it was high up. When we were moving, we picked up this big vase, and it almost tipped over. It made a rustling noise, and I was like, What's in here? Well, I dumped it out, and hundreds upon hundreds of Laffy Taffy wrappers came pouring out.

"It was the most beautiful thing in the world."