PART 2
“Birdie” was what my father called me.
He was a sergeant in the Army. He left for Vietnam when I was twelve.
He never came home.
I was thirteen when two officers knocked on our door in Duluth. My mother fell to the floor. I stood in the hallway holding the letter I was going to mail him that day.
Nobody called me Birdie after that. I wouldn’t let them.
I called 911 from the creek. It took the rescue team ninety minutes to reach us. The dog wouldn’t leave his side the whole time.
They flew him to the hospital in Duluth.
Broken hip. Severe hypothermia. Dehydration.
“Another two nights out there,” the doctor told me, “and he wouldn’t have made it. That dog kept him alive. Body heat and biscuits.”
His name was Harold Tate. He was 84.
Three days later, they let me see him.
