“He never told us.”
The mother answered without anger:
“He was going to.”
“The night he died.”
The road captain looked toward the envelopes.
“What are the others?”
The boy opened the second.
This one was addressed:
FOR MY BROTHERS.
He handed it to the road captain.
The biker hesitated.
Then unfolded it.
His dead brother’s voice existed again in ink.
You idiots,
One biker laughed instantly.
The road captain smiled.
If you're reading this because I actually managed to become a responsible father and gave it to you myself, act surprised.
If you're reading it because I’m dead, stop making that face. We ride motorcycles. None of us were promised ninety.
The road captain stopped.
“Still an idiot.”
The mother smiled through tears.
He continued silently for a few lines.
Then read aloud.
“‘I’m leaving the club.’”
Every biker froze.
Even after nine years.
The words hurt.
The road captain looked toward the mother.
She nodded.
“He was.”
“Why?”
“Because of the baby?”
“Partly.”
The road captain kept reading.
Not leaving you. Leaving the road the way we've been doing it.
I don't want my kid growing up thinking his father only knew how to be present when there was gasoline involved.
A biker muttered:
“Fair.”
I’ll still ride. I’ll still annoy all of you. But the cross-country runs, drinking until sunrise, disappearing for three days because the weather is good—that part is done.
The road captain smiled painfully.
Their brother had been planning a future none of them knew about.
Do not blame her.
The sentence sat alone.
The road captain read it twice.
Then continued.
This is my decision.
She never asked me to stop riding.
If anything happens to me before I tell you, do not turn her into the woman who took me away.
The mother lowered her head.
The road captain looked at her.
“Did we?”
She hesitated.
“Some of you.”
Nobody asked which.
They already knew.
After her disappearance, anger filled the absence.
Some bikers had said she never belonged.
That she had wanted their brother away from them.
That she had not cared enough to attend the funeral.
They had never considered the possibility that she was twenty-six, newly pregnant, grieving, and unable to stand among forty men wearing the dead man’s face in different pieces.
The road captain whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded.
Not forgiving everything.
Just hearing it.
The letter continued.
Take care of each other.
And if the kid ever shows up, don't scare him.
The road captain looked at the boy.
His enormous body.
Tattooed arms.
Leather vest.
The boy smiled slightly.
“You scared me a little.”
The room laughed.
The road captain wiped his eyes.