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.

The county inspector did come on Friday.

So did the local news.

And so did half of Ely. The VFW. The high school hockey team. People I hadn’t seen in years.

The line went out the door and down the block.

The inspector ordered a coffee, ate a biscuit, and left without writing anything.

The VFW post voted to cover my rent increase for the next two years. “For the woman who found one of ours,” their commander said.

Glen Hobart doesn’t come in anymore.

Nobody misses him.

Harold lives in the assisted living home two blocks from the diner now.

Every Tuesday, Rudy drives him over. Black coffee. Two eggs.

Duchess lives with me. She sleeps on Ed’s side of the bed.

And every morning at 6:40, she sits by the register and waits for her biscuit.

Now she eats it.

THE END.

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Sometimes kindness takes fifty-eight years to come back to you. But it comes.