He looked at his hands.
“Two years ago, I found you. I bought the cabin by the fire tower. I came into your diner every Tuesday. Black coffee, two eggs. I never had the nerve to say a word.”
I knew him then. The quiet man in the corner booth. Always left a twenty.
“Then my memory started slipping,” he said. “I took Duchess for a walk and got turned around. Fell by the creek. And she wouldn’t leave me.”
I opened the envelope with shaking hands.
It was my father’s handwriting.
“Birdie, if Harold gives you this, it means I’m not coming home. Don’t be sad forever. Be a teacher. Be kind to strays. And never let anybody tell you that you can’t.”
I hadn’t cried in front of anyone since Ed’s funeral.
I cried in that hospital room for a long time.
