The Empty Chair at Table Five

Every Sunday for over a decade, table five at Miller’s Diner had one empty seat. It was always set, silverware aligned, coffee poured, untouched. The regulars knew why.

Clara Thompson’s son, Private First Class Jeremy Thompson, was deployed to Iraq in 2009. He promised to come home for Sunday pancakes, like they always did. But one day, the calls stopped. The updates grew vague. Eventually, the Army listed him as MIA.

But Clara never missed a Sunday. “He’s not gone. He’s just delayed,” she’d say with a small smile, folding his napkin.

One snowy December morning, the bell above the diner door rang. Clara looked up and dropped the plate in her hand. Jeremy, thinner and grayer but unmistakably her boy, stood there.

No big words. Just: “Sorry, Mom. Pancakes still on?”