The leader stayed.
Kendra stayed.
The injured biker looked toward Adeline.
“Did Claire tell you why I was on that road yesterday?”
Adeline shook her head.
“You were going to the tree.”
His face went still.
Kendra felt the shift.
“What tree?”
The leader looked confused too.
The injured man whispered:
“How do you know that?”
Adeline looked toward the window.
“She said you promised not to go alone anymore.”
The man covered his eyes with one hand.
Kendra asked:
“What tree?”
The leader answered.
“The tree where Claire died.”
The injured biker had been riding there alone.
Every year around the anniversary he visited.
The leader swore.
“You told me you stopped doing that.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
The injured man looked angry now.
“Because the last time I asked you to come, you spent two hours blaming yourself.”
The leader had no response.
Kendra looked toward Adeline.
“So yesterday's crash was near the same place?”
The injured biker nodded.
“Half a mile away.”
“Were you going too fast?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“A deer.”
“That's it?”
“I swerved.”
The motorcycle left the road.
“Why didn't anybody know where you were?”
“I wanted to be alone.”
Adeline crossed her arms.
“Claire said that's stupid.”
The biker laughed painfully.
“Yep.”
Then the girl added:
“She says you keep thinking being sad is the same as loving her.”
Nobody laughed.
The injured biker stared.
Kendra felt tears return.
Adeline continued.
“She says it isn't.”
The man whispered:
“What is?”
The child shrugged.
“Living.”
Silence.
The leader turned away.
The injured biker closed his eyes.
For several seconds, Kendra wondered whether six-year-olds could invent sentences like that.
Maybe.
Children surprised adults constantly.
But something about the timing felt impossible.
The biker opened his eyes.
“Claire said that before.”
The leader turned back.
“When?”
“The week before the accident.”
His voice weakened.
“We were talking about my father.”
The biker's father had died years earlier.
He had withdrawn afterward.
Claire told him exactly that.
Being sad isn't the same as loving somebody. Living is.
The phrase had never been written down.
Never shared publicly.
The biker looked at Kendra.
“I never told anybody.”
The room changed.
Even Kendra, determined to find ordinary explanations, had none ready.
Adeline looked bored by everyone’s shock.
She climbed onto the visitor chair.
“Can we get ice cream now?”
Kendra laughed suddenly.
The sound became half sob.
“Yes.”
Adeline smiled.
“You promised yesterday.”
“I know.”
The biker wiped his face.
“Princess gets ice cream.”
Kendra pointed at him.
“You do not get a vote.”
He smiled.
“Fair.”
They left after twenty minutes.
The biker leader walked them to the elevator.
Before the doors opened, he handed Kendra a folded photograph.
“You don't have to take this.”
She looked.
Claire.