Most people had Thanksgiving
off with family or what friends
they hadn’t pushed away.
I worked at the diner
and saw people you’d never expect
to eat here for Thanksgiving.
From the poorest of hearts
to the wealthiest men in three-piece suits.
I heard their stories.
I never asked.
I didn’t have to.
They just needed someone
to talk to, not give goddamn advice
just listen.
One day, I broke down.
A man asked if I was okay.
I asked why.
He said I’d been staring into seclusion
and wiping the same counter for two minutes.
I told him I’d never met my father.
He told me he didn’t know how to tell me.
I said I was all ears.
He told me that he was my father.
He was the man in the three-piece suit
who’d been coming for the last three years.
He was going to tell me,
but he overheard me listen to the people
in desperate need of healing,
so he allowed me to listen
as he said, in a cracked voice,
that he was proud of me.
I listened.
And Dad, well, he listened to me.
That would have been my last year at the diner
had Dad not bought it for me.