The following days felt different.
I kept thinking about Cyrus.
I kept thinking about James.
I had spent so much of my life accepting that my father's story ended before I could remember it.
Now somebody had opened a door.
And I didn't know what was waiting on the other side.
I tried calling my relatives.
Nobody knew much.
The few people who remembered my father had only repeated what my mother had told me.
He was a Marine.
He died overseas.
He had been young.
That was all.
I went home and took his photograph out of the envelope.
I placed it on the kitchen table.
For a long time, I studied his face.
I wondered whether Cyrus had stood beside him when that photograph was taken.
I wondered whether they had laughed together.
Whether they had shared meals.
Whether they had argued about ordinary things.
I wanted to know what kind of friend my father had been.
More than anything, I wanted to know whether he had spoken about me.
A baby girl.
A daughter he had barely known.
I went back to work the next morning.
The diner was busy.
Chad was already complaining about the coffee machine.
I was carrying plates when the bell above the entrance rang.
I looked up.
Cyrus had arrived.
But this time, he wasn't carrying his usual small wallet and nothing else.
He had a large envelope tucked beneath his arm.
He looked directly at me.
I put down the plates.
"Good morning, Mr. Lambert."
He nodded.
"Good morning, Roberta."
He walked to Booth 4.
I followed him.
"Would you like your usual?"
He looked at me.
"Yes, please."
I brought the two coffees.
He thanked me.
Then he placed the envelope on the table.
I noticed how carefully he handled it.
It was old.
The edges were worn.
There was a slight crease across one corner.
He kept one hand resting on it.
I sat down opposite him.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
Then he pushed the envelope toward me.
"This belongs to you."
I stared at it.
"What is it?"
"Something I should have given you a long time ago."
My hands began to shake.
I looked at the envelope again.
"Is it about my father?"
Cyrus nodded.
"Yes."
I didn't open it immediately.
I wanted to.
I was afraid to.
There is a strange thing about waiting for answers.
You spend years believing you want them.
Then somebody finally places them in front of you, and you realize that answers can hurt just as much as questions.
Cyrus watched me.
"I should have come sooner."
I looked at him.
"Why didn't you?"
He lowered his eyes.
"I didn't know how to face you."
I felt tears gathering.
I didn't want to cry in the middle of the diner.
But I couldn't pretend this was an ordinary morning anymore.
I reached for the envelope.
My fingers trembled as I opened it.
Inside was an old black-and-white photograph.
Two young Marines stood together.
They had their arms around each other's shoulders.
Their uniforms were dusty.
The sun was bright enough that both men were squinting.
There were palm trees behind them.
The photograph looked as though it had been taken somewhere far away from home.
One of the men was Cyrus.
I recognized him immediately.
He looked so young.
His face was thinner.
His hair was darker.
But his eyes were the same.
I looked at the other man.
And my breath caught.
His nose was mine.
His chin was mine.
Even the crooked smile looked familiar.
I had seen that face in the only photograph I owned of my father.
It was James.
My father.
I touched the picture carefully.
I couldn't believe I was holding something that had existed before I was old enough to remember anything.
I turned it over.
There was writing on the back.
The ink had faded, but the names were still readable.
Cy and Jimmy.
Hue City.
January 1968.
I stared at the words.
Then I looked at Cyrus.
"That's my father?"
He nodded.
"Yes, sweetheart."
I had never seen them together before.
For the first time, I could see the two men as they had been.
Not as old photographs.
Not as names in somebody else's memories.
Two young friends standing side by side.
I took a breath and looked inside the envelope again.
There was a letter.
Four pages.
The paper had yellowed with age.
The handwriting was careful.
Cyrus watched me unfold it.
"Take your time."
I sat back against the booth.
The second coffee stood between us.
I began reading.
The letter started with an apology.
Cyrus admitted that he should have contacted me years earlier.
He said he had been afraid.
He called himself a coward.
I looked up.
He was staring at the table.
I continued.
He wrote that my father, Private First Class James Kane, had been his closest friend during their service.
They had gone through boot camp together.
They had been assigned overseas together.
They had shared the same difficult journey.
I read the words twice.
My father had not been alone.
He had somebody beside him.
Then I reached the date.
February 4, 1968.
Hue City.
I stopped.
The letter described what happened that day.
Cyrus had been crossing a street when gunfire struck him in both legs.
He fell.
He couldn't move.
He was trapped in the open.
My father saw him.
And my father ran toward him.
He dragged Cyrus behind a wall, getting him out of the street.
I pressed my fingers against the paper.
My father had saved his friend's life.
Cyrus had survived because James had refused to leave him there.
I looked across the table.
He hadn't moved.
I continued reading.
The letter explained that my father had gone back into the open.
There was another Marine who needed help.
James went to get him.
But he never returned.
I stopped reading.
I couldn't make myself move to the next line.
The diner seemed to grow quiet around me.
I looked at the photograph again.
The young man with my face had been standing beside Cyrus only weeks before.
He had saved him.
Then he had gone back for someone else.
And that was the last time Cyrus saw him alive.
I looked at the next paragraph.
Before they had shipped overseas, my father had shown Cyrus a photograph of his baby daughter.
Me.
He had told his friend that if anything happened to him, Cyrus should check on the little girl.
My name was Roberta.
My father had known that he might not come home.
And he had made his friend promise to look after me.
I covered my mouth.
I had spent my whole life wondering whether my father had thought about me.
Now I was reading his friend's account of the promise he had made.
I continued.
Cyrus explained that it had taken him forty-nine years to find me.
When he finally located me, he had seen me working inside the diner.
He had watched me through the window.
He had wanted to come inside and tell me who he was.
But he couldn't bring himself to do it.
So he chose the one day each year when he believed he had a reason to visit.
He ordered two coffees.
One for himself.
One for Jimmy.
The letter explained everything.
The second cup had never been for a customer who was late.
It had been for my father.
And every year, when I sat with Cyrus or placed his coffee on the table, I had unknowingly been keeping my father's place beside him.
I looked at the final lines.
Cyrus thanked me for paying his bill.
He explained that the coffee had always been my father's treat.
Then came the words at the bottom.
Semper Fi.
Cy.
I lowered the letter.
I couldn't speak.
For several seconds, I just sat there.
The photograph rested in my left hand.
The letter rested in my right.
Across from me, Cyrus remained silent.
He had spent years coming back to that booth.
Years carrying a promise he had never known how to fulfill.
And now I understood why.
I looked at him.
He looked older than he had when he first walked through the diner door.
His eyes were wet.
I wanted to say something.
Anything.
But no words came.
The entire diner had gone quiet.
The veterans sitting near the window had removed their caps.
Chad stood beside the booth.
He had read part of the letter over my shoulder.
His face had lost its color.
I looked down at the photograph once more.
My father was smiling.
And for the first time in my life, I wasn't looking at a picture of a man I had lost.
I was looking at a young man who had loved me before I ever had the chance to know him.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The Man Who Had Carried My Father’s Promise For Decades Finally Had To Face The Daughter He Had Promised To Find
The Old Marine Who Came Back Every Year and Ordered Two Coffees Had Left Something Behind That Changed Everything I Knew About My Father
Part 4 of 10
