Legally, the Harley became Owen’s.
Disassembled.
Anna laughed for nearly five minutes.
Best birthday gift she had received in years.
Owen worked.
Every evening.
Every weekend.
Russell did not do it for him.
He answered questions.
Sometimes.
Other times:
“What did you check?”
Owen hated the notebook.
Still used it.
WHAT I THINK IS WRONG.
WHAT I CHECKED.
WHAT I WAS WRONG ABOUT.
He filled pages.
The transmission went in.
Then came out because he missed a spacer.
The front brake line routing had to be redone.
A seal leaked.
The carburetor needed cleaning.
The wiring harness contained repairs older than Owen.
He found Caleb’s handwriting under the tank:
BEAR DID THIS PART. BLAME HIM.
Owen laughed so hard he had to sit down.
Russell looked.
“That was not there.”
“Yes, it was.”
“I’m suing a dead man.”
Anna photographed it.
The rebuild took ten weeks.
College had already started.
Owen delayed taking the Harley with him.
Good.
He lived in a dorm.
Motorcycle stayed in Mason Creek.
On weekends he returned.
Not all weekends.
That mattered.
He built a life elsewhere.
Friends.
Classes.
A girl named Mia he refused to discuss with Anna.
The bike did not become his identity.
Caleb would have liked that.
At Thanksgiving, they finished.
The burgundy motorcycle stood complete beneath the shop lights.
Cleaner than before.
Mechanically safer.
Still old.
Still carrying scratches.
Owen had deliberately refused to repaint the tank.
The silver half-symbol remained unfinished.
Russell looked toward it.
“You gonna finish that?”
Owen held the same silver marker.
Ten years old.
Dried long ago.
He had kept it anyway.
“You can’t draw with that.”
Owen smiled.
“I know.”
He placed it on the workbench.
Then took out a new silver paint marker.
Anna stood nearby.
Russell watched.
Owen touched the marker to the tank.
Then stopped.
“What?”
Russell asked.
Owen looked toward his mother.
“Ready?”
Anna’s eyes filled.
The question was not permission to draw.
Not really.
She walked toward the motorcycle.
For ten years she had imagined this moment.
Sometimes with dread.
Sometimes anger.
Sometimes grief.
Now she saw her husband’s old machine.
Her son’s hands.
Russell’s aging face.
All the years in between.
“Finish it.”
Owen completed the second wing.
Slowly.
Then the star.
The symbol was uneven.
Part drawn by an eight-year-old.
Part by an eighteen-year-old.
Russell stared at it.
“Ugly.”
Owen laughed.
“Perfect.”
They sealed it beneath clear protective finish later.
Never corrected the lines.
The first ride happened in December.
Cold.
Bright.
Owen wore proper gear.
No father’s jacket.
No costume.
His own.
Anna stood beside the shop.
Terrified.
Russell climbed onto his own motorcycle.
Owen looked toward him.
“You’re leading?”
Russell nodded.