She Doesn’t Like Boiled Potatoes

She Doesn’t Like Boiled Potatoes

My wife doesn’t like boiled potatoes.
At first, I thought it was simply a matter of taste or texture.
One day, while grocery shopping, I came across some particularly fresh potatoes. Without much thought, I brought them home and boiled them for her.

“Just try one bite,” I said, offering her the warm, tender potato.

She hesitated, her face tightening slightly. Then, she forced herself to swallow.
Perhaps she didn’t want to disappoint me.
Perhaps she didn’t want to ignore the effort I had made.

I asked gently,
“Why do you dislike potatoes so much?”

She was silent for a long while.
Then, in a voice just above a whisper,
she began to share a story she had long buried —
a story of a winter night she never truly left behind.

That winter, after being separated from her older sister Chun-yi,
she ran away from the orphanage.
She had no plan, no destination — just the need to leave.

She boarded a train without a ticket,
without knowing where she was going,
without knowing what might happen next.

After some time, a train conductor began walking down the aisle, checking tickets.
Cold sweat trickled down her back.

Overwhelmed, she did the only thing she could — she cried.
Silently, but with a grief that felt as if the world itself was ending.

“Sweetheart, where’s your ticket?”
“Where’s your mother? Where are your parents?”

It was the first time she had ever lied.
She imagined a mother’s face she could barely remember,
and moved her lips.

“She… she bought me a ticket to visit my aunt. But… I left my bag at the station while I was buying a pancake…”

The conductor seemed flustered, his expression softening.
“Oh no… Where does your aunt live, then?”

She didn’t know what to say.
She had never been anywhere outside her small world.
Finally, she whispered the only thing she could think of:

“Somewhere far… the farthest place.”

“Ah… So, Beijing then?”
“…Yes. Beijing.”

And with that unfamiliar name,
she sealed her first lie.

The conductor paused for a moment,
then quietly led her to the staff’s break room —
a small, worn space with a hot steamed bun and a cup of tea.

The train clattered on.
Outside, the whistle howled now and then.
That day, those sounds became her lullaby.
For a brief moment, she felt safe enough to sleep.

When she awoke, a gentle hand was shaking her shoulder.
“We’re here — Beijing.”
The conductor smiled at her kindly.

“Shall I take you to the front of the station?”

She shook her head, trying to look grown-up.
“No, thank you. I know the way.
Thank you… for everything.”

In truth, she didn’t know where to go.
But at that moment, she believed she had to act like an adult.

With trembling legs,
she stepped outside the station.
Everything was new, unfamiliar.

There were smells she had never known,
perfume lingering between strangers,
and laughter floating in the air.
But it all grew dim in the bitter winter wind.

Her nose began to sting.
She wiped her runny nose on her sleeve,
dragged her ill-fitting black rubber shoes along the ground,
and walked slowly, step by step.

Eventually, the people thinned out.
And she was alone.

As the cold deepened,
she found a stack of boxes outside a shop.
She carried them to a phone booth,
laid some on the ground, and covered herself with the rest like a blanket.

Streetlights spilled softly into the booth.
There, she waited —
for the night to become morning,
for the world to become just a little warmer.

—

When morning came,
a woman gently knocked on the glass and woke her.

“You can’t sleep here, sweetheart. I need to make a phone call.”
“…Okay.”

She quickly gathered the boxes and stepped outside.
At that very moment,
her stomach growled.

It wasn’t her mind —
It was her body telling her for the first time:
You are hungry.

She looked up.
Ahead of her, someone tossed leftover food into a trash can and walked away.

Drawn by something instinctual,
she slowly approached.

Inside the bin,
she found a cold, hard-boiled egg
and a frozen boiled potato.

She picked them up carefully,
wrapped them in her old, tattered clothes,
and held them against her belly.

Please get warm…
She whispered in her heart.

That potato,
that egg —
in that moment,
they were proof that she was still alive.

Inside that frozen food,
she searched for a reason to keep going
in a world that felt colder than ever.

She was just nine years old.

—

Since then,
she has never eaten boiled potatoes.

To her, that potato is not just a food.
It is a memory —
of abandonment,
of aching loneliness,
and the raw, relentless instinct to survive.

It is not a taste she dislikes.
It’s a chapter of her life she can never fully digest.