“I’m sorry.”
“You already said that.”
“I can say it again.”
Bear almost smiled.
Almost.
He did not.
He touched the edge of the white line with one thumb.
Nothing moved.
The paint had already begun drying.
This motorcycle was the one object in Jack Maddox’s life that he never neglected.
Most people called him Bear because Jack sounded too small for a man who stood six feet four and had once lifted the front end of a broken motorcycle high enough for another man to pull a trapped boot free.
At fifty-six, Bear owned Maddox Cycle & Fabrication twenty minutes outside town.
The shop roof leaked near the parts room.
The office chair had one wheel that occasionally fell off.
His refrigerator contained mustard, four eggs, and a container of chili he should have thrown away on Thursday.
But the motorcycle was perfect.
Or close enough.
Every Sunday morning, whether he rode or not, Bear wiped the tank.
Not because the machine was expensive.
It was.
Not because other bikers admired it.
They did.
Because he had built it during the year he learned how to stay sober.
Every part had arrived at a different point in that year.
Frame at three months.
Engine at five.
Tank at seven.
Paint at nine.
At twelve months, he rode it alone along Route 9 to a roadside overlook where twelve years earlier he had nearly died.
He never told people that part.
The black touring motorcycle had never been vandalized.
Never dropped.
Never loaned.
And now an eight-year-old boy had drawn two stick figures across the fuel tank with a white paint marker.
Bear looked at the tiny passenger.
Something about it stopped him.
He leaned closer.
“You.”
Noah nodded.
“That’s supposed to be you?”
Another nod.
“And this ugly bastard?”
Noah looked surprised.
“You.”
The bald biker on the porch coughed to hide a laugh.
Bear ignored him.
He studied the drawing.
The child had given him a beard large enough to hide half the motorcycle.
The handlebars were wrong.
The front wheel was almost square.
The little passenger’s arms were spread.
Bear looked at Noah.
“Why?”
Noah shifted his weight.
“Why what?”
“Why are you on my motorcycle?”
The boy looked at the ground.
Bear waited.
The answer, when it came, was so quiet Bear almost missed it.
“I wanted to see what it looked like.”
“What what looked like?”
Noah pressed his lips together.
He was trying not to cry.
Bear recognized the effort.
Adults often thought children cried suddenly.
Usually they worked very hard against it first.
The boy whispered:
“Having a dad for one ride.”
Everything inside Bear went still.
The men near the porch stopped moving.
A truck passed on the highway.
Its tires hissed against the pavement.
Bear lowered his hand from the tank.
“What did you say?”
Noah stared at the marker.
“My dad died.”
Bear’s anger vanished so quickly it left him disoriented.
“When?”
“Spring.”
The boy sniffed.
“My mom says six months.”
He pointed toward the little figure behind Bear.
“Dad never had a motorcycle.”
“He said they were too dangerous.”
Bear nodded slowly.
“Some are.”
Noah looked up.
“Are you a dad?”
The question landed somewhere Bear did not allow people to visit.
He looked toward the roadhouse.
“No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
Noah considered.
Then:
“You look like one.”
Bear blinked.
The bald biker turned away because he was smiling now.
Bear frowned.
“What does a dad look like?”
Noah lifted one shoulder.
“Big.”
That made the two men laugh.
Bear looked over.
“Enjoying yourselves?”
“Nope,” the bandanna man said.
“Not even a little.”
Bear turned back to Noah.
The boy was staring at the drawing again.
“I shouldn’t have done it.”
“No.”
“Mom’s going to be mad.”