“I’m afraid of dying because I love being your father.”
“I love your mother.”
“I like mornings.”
“I like motorcycles.”
“I like complaining about taxes.”
“I even like your terrible music.”
Noah objected.
“My music is better than yours.”
“Impossible.”
Caleb smiled.
“If none of that mattered, death would be easier.”
Noah looked out over the desert.
“So you're scared because you're happy?”
“Something like that.”
“That’s weird.”
“Life is badly designed.”
Noah smiled.
They stood quietly.
Then Noah asked:
“Are you scared right now?”
Caleb looked at the Harley.
At his son.
At the open road.
“Little.”
Noah grinned.
“Go anyway?”
Caleb nodded.
“This time, yes.”
They put their helmets back on.
Years later, Noah would remember that ride differently from Caleb.
Children always did.
Noah remembered the wind.
The smell of hot desert brush.
His father’s leather vest.
The way the Harley vibrated through the seat.
Caleb remembered checking mirrors every ten seconds.
Wondering if Noah was comfortable.
Wondering if he had made a mistake.
Wondering whether parents ever stopped being afraid.
They did not.
Fear simply changed clothes.
When Noah was seven, Caleb feared death.
When Noah was twelve, Caleb feared motorcycles.
At sixteen, he feared cars.
At eighteen, college.
At twenty-one, stupid decisions.
At twenty-six, heartbreak.
At thirty, fatherhood.
Caleb eventually understood what no doctor had explained.
Survival was not the end of fear.
Survival gave fear more opportunities.
That was not tragedy.
It was the price of continuing.
The Harley remained in the family.
Caleb stopped riding regularly in his sixties.
Knees.
Back.
Mara used both as ammunition.
Noah, now grown, wanted the motorcycle.
Caleb refused for three years.
“You said it would be mine.”
“I said eventually.”
“You're seventy.”
“Exactly.”
“Eventually has arrived.”
“Subjective.”
Mara sided with Noah.
Betrayal.
Finally Caleb surrendered the keys.
The keychain still hung there.
Scratched.
Faded.
NOT TODAY.
Noah noticed.
“You kept it.”
Caleb looked offended.
“Of course.”
Noah turned the keychain over.
“Remember the envelope?”
Caleb groaned.
“Unfortunately.”
“You looked terrified.”
“I was terrified.”
“You told me the blood wasn't yours.”
“It wasn't.”
Noah ran one hand across the fuel tank.
“Crazy how much started here.”
Caleb nodded.
He could still see his seven-year-old son in dinosaur pajamas.
Could still hear the question.
Are you afraid to die?
Caleb placed his hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“I've got one condition.”
“For the bike?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“When your kid asks you a hard question…”
Noah smiled.
“Tell the truth.”
“Even when you don't know it.”
“Especially then.”
Noah nodded.
“I learned from you.”
Caleb laughed.
“You learned because I messed it up first.”
“Same thing.”