“I read my father’s letters last night,” Vincent said. “He wrote about you. A lot.”
Silence on the other end, then a shaky breath.
“He was a good man,” Arthur said finally. “The best I ever knew.”
“Would you,” Vincent hesitated, then pushed forward. “Would you be willing to meet again? Maybe for coffee? I have so many questions.”
“I would like that very much,” Arthur said.
They met at a small diner on the edge of town, the kind of place with red vinyl booths and coffee that was always fresh.
Arthur was already there when Vincent arrived, sitting in a corner booth with a cup of black coffee and a faraway look in his eyes.
Vincent slid into the seat across from him.
“Thank you for coming,” Vincent said.
“Thank you for wanting to know,” Arthur replied.
For the next three hours, Arthur talked.
He told Vincent about the day he met George, both of them fresh recruits, terrified but trying to hide it.
He told him about the running jokes they had, the nicknames they gave each other, the songs they sang to pass the time.
He told him about the good days, the ones where nothing happened and they could almost pretend they were camping instead of at war.
And he told him about the bad days, though he softened those stories, leaving out the worst parts that Vincent did not need to carry.
“Your father saved my life twice,” Arthur said. “Once literally, pulling me out of the line of fire. Once less literally, when I was ready to give up and he talked me through it.”
“What did he say?” Vincent asked.
Arthur smiled faintly.
“He said, Your mother did not raise a quitter, Bennett. And neither did mine. We are going home, both of us, and we are going to live good lives to honor the guys who do not make it. That is the deal.”
Vincent’s throat tightened.
“But he did not make it home.”
“No,” Arthur said quietly. “He did not. And I have spent fifty years trying to live well enough for both of us.”
Vincent reached across the table and gripped Arthur’s weathered hand.
“You kept your promise. You found me. That is enough.”
Arthur’s eyes filled with tears he did not try to hide.
“I wish I had found you sooner,” he said. “I wish I could have told you when you were young, when you needed to know your father was a hero.”
“You told me now,” Vincent said. “And that matters.”
Over the following weeks, Arthur and Vincent met regularly.
Sometimes at the diner. Sometimes at Vincent’s house, where Sarah would make dinner and listen to Arthur’s stories with the same rapt attention as her husband.
Arthur brought photographs he had kept, pictures of young men in uniform, smiling despite everything.
He pointed out George in group shots, always easy to spot because of his wide grin and the way he stood with his arm around whoever was next to him.
“He was the glue,” Arthur said. “The one who kept morale up when things got dark. He would tell jokes, bad ones, but we would laugh anyway because we needed to.”
Vincent studied the photos, memorizing his father’s face, the way he stood, the way he smiled.
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