PART 2: Four Pages from Corporal Lambert
There was a letter, too. Four pages long. I sat down in Booth 4 to read it, with Corporal Lambert across from me, in the seat where the second coffee always went.
“Dear Roberta,
I should have told you this nine years ago. I was a coward. I’m sorry.
Your father, Private First Class James Kane, was my best friend. We went through boot camp together. We shipped out together.
On February 4th, 1968, in Hue City, I was shot in both legs crossing a street. I couldn’t move. Your father ran out into the open and dragged me behind a wall.
He went back for another man.
He didn’t make it back the second time.
Before we shipped out, he showed me a picture of his baby girl. Roberta. He said, ‘If anything happens, Cy, you check on her.’
