“Maggie. Maggie, come here. You need to see this.”
I walked over, expecting the worst. Trash everywhere. Something broken. Some crude message left behind.
And in the center of the table was an envelope.
My name was written on the front. “Maggie.”
“How did they know my name?” I whispered.
“It’s on the sign outside,” Lily said. “Maggie’s Diner.”
My hands trembled as I opened the envelope. Inside was a stack of cash. I counted it twice. Five hundred dollars. And there was a note written on diner napkin.
The note was written in careful handwriting, like someone who’d taken their time:
“Dear Maggie, We understand why you asked us to pay upfront. We know how we look. We know what people assume. We’ve been getting those looks our whole lives. We’re not angry. We’re not offended. You were protecting your business and your customers. We respect that.
But we wanted you to know who we are.
Tonight we were on our way home from a funeral. Our brother Jimmy passed away last week. Lung cancer. He was 64. He served three tours in Vietnam and never complained about anything except the coffee at the VA hospital.
Jimmy’s last wish was to be buried in his hometown, 400 miles from where most of us live. So we rode out here together to say goodbye. Fifteen men on fifteen motorcycles crossing three states to honor our brother.
We stopped at your diner because we saw the American flag in your window. We thought this would be a safe place. A place that might understand who we are beneath the leather and tattoos.
We were wrong. But that’s okay. We’re used to being wrong about.
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