He shrugged.
“Old men like equipment.”
The power stayed out for eighteen hours.
Instead of the carefully planned Christmas dinner, they heated chili on a camp stove.
Eli opened presents beside lantern light.
Halfway through, he disappeared.
Mack found him upstairs sitting on the floor.
“What?”
Eli wiped his eyes angrily.
“Nothing.”
“That answer is usually a lie.”
The boy looked away.
“I miss Grandpa.”
Walter.
Mack sat on the floor beside him.
His knees complained.
He ignored them.
“Yeah.”
“Everybody’s happy.”
“You’re allowed to be sad when everybody’s happy.”
Eli looked at him.
“Are you?”
“Both.”
“How?”
Mack thought.
“People act like feelings take turns.”
“They don’t.”
“You can miss someone while laughing.”
“You can love somebody and still be mad.”
“You can be happy something new exists and angry it didn’t exist sooner.”
Eli leaned against the wall.
“Christmas feels wrong.”
“Probably will for a while.”
“You’re bad at making people feel better.”
“I know.”
The boy smiled faintly.
Mack continued:
“Walter would’ve hated all those presents.”
Eli laughed.
“Yeah.”
“He’d say I’m buying affection.”
“He did say that.”
“What?”
Eli looked guilty.
“Before he died.”
Mack stared.
“That man left insults scheduled for after death.”
Eli laughed harder.
They went downstairs.
Mack returned three of the unopened gifts the following week.
Kept the expensive winter coat.
Some compromises were nonnegotiable.
Clearing Danny’s name changed the bikers too.
For decades they had talked around the bridge.
Never about it.
They could discuss motorcycles, divorces, jobs, children, politics, injuries, money, death.
Mention Red Hollow and the room changed.
After the county correction, that silence became unnecessary.
Not painless.
Unnecessary.
The four began meeting once a month at the diner.
At first, Eli came occasionally.
Later, every time.
They called it breakfast.
It was really confession spread across years.
One admitted he had thrown away every photograph from the construction period.
Another had not driven across a steel bridge in thirty years.
The quiet biker revealed he visited Danny’s grave anonymously every spring.
Mack stared.
“How long?”
“Since the first anniversary.”
“You never told us.”
“Wasn’t for you.”
Mack nodded.
Fair.
The long-bearded biker admitted he had once tried to contact Walter but hung up when Walter answered.
“What year?”
“Maybe ninety-eight.”
“Why’d you call?”
“I was drinking.”
“Why’d you hang up?”
“Because he said hello.”
Everyone laughed.
Then he cried.
That happened a lot during those breakfasts.
Laughter arriving in the middle of grief.
Grief interrupting ordinary jokes.
Eli watched men he once considered indestructible become human.