“Birthday gifts.”
The Cashier frowned.
“All twelve have birthdays?”
A tiny smile appeared beneath the gray beard.
“No.”
The Cashier waited.
The Biker began counting cash again.
She thought the conversation was over.
Then he said:
“One birthday.”
The Cashier scanned the final doll.
“I don’t understand.”
The Biker looked toward the floor.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he reached into his vest.
Not the wallet.
Another pocket.
He removed a photograph.
Old.
Bent at the corners.
The kind printed before phones became cameras.
He held it for a moment before turning it toward her.
A young man stood beside a motorcycle.
The Cashier recognized him immediately.
Same eyes.
Same shoulders.
Much less beard.
Probably thirty years old.
Beside him stood a little girl.
Maybe twelve.
She had light brown hair.
A bright smile.
A denim jacket.
And both arms wrapped around a pink princess doll.
The Biker’s thumb rested along the edge of the photograph.
“She was my daughter.”
The Cashier looked up.
The Biker did not.
“She loved those things.”
He nodded toward the dolls.
“Princesses?”
“She loved stories.”
The answer surprised her.
“She didn’t care much about the dresses.”
His mouth moved into the smallest smile.
“She liked that princesses always got to choose something.”
The Cashier glanced toward the old photograph again.
“What happened?”
The question escaped before she could decide whether she had the right to ask.
The Biker looked at the photo.
“Cancer.”
The Cashier’s chest tightened.
“How old?”
“Twelve.”
The word barely came out.
Suddenly the number of dolls made sense.
Twelve.
The Cashier looked across the stack.
Pink boxes.
Twelve birthdays.
The Biker continued.
“Today would’ve been her thirtieth.”
The Cashier felt her throat tighten.
He returned the photograph toward his vest.
Then stopped.
Something on the back caught the fluorescent light.
Writing.
The Cashier did not mean to stare.
The Biker noticed.
He turned the photograph over.
Childish handwriting covered the back in faded blue ink.
The letters leaned unevenly.
Some words were darker because the writer had pressed the pen harder.
The Cashier read:
Daddy, if I ever can’t come with you, promise you’ll still make another little girl feel like a princess.
The Cashier stopped breathing for a second.
She looked up.
The Biker’s eyes were wet now.
He made no attempt to hide it.
“She wrote that three weeks before she died.”
The Cashier covered her mouth.
The Biker looked embarrassed by her reaction.
Not by his own emotion.
He put the photograph back inside his vest.
“That first year after…”
His voice weakened.
He cleared his throat.
“I didn’t know what to do with her birthday.”
The Cashier listened.
“I woke up.”
He looked toward the register.