“Unstable.”
“Angry.”
“He said my mother was right to leave.”
The president swallowed.
The mother continued.
“He said signing adoption papers was the first decent thing he’d done for me because he knew I deserved a father who was present.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“That made me angrier.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted him to fight for me.”
The chapter president nodded.
“Even if fighting would have been worse?”
“Yes.”
“That’s human.”
She wiped her cheek.
“We spent two years meeting occasionally.”
“Then my daughter was born.”
The president looked toward hallway where the little girl waited with the female rider.
“Your father changed.”
“Yes.”
“He became ridiculous.”
The chapter president smiled.
“Also sounds like him.”
“He bought her things I told him not to buy.”
“Chocolate.”
“Toy motorcycles.”
“Tiny leather jacket.”
The president laughed.
“Of course.”
“He never tried to be her father.”
“He asked what I was comfortable with.”
“That mattered.”
The chapter president nodded.
“Why keep us out?”
The mother’s face tightened.
“Because he was ashamed.”
“Of us?”
“Of himself.”
The president stared.
“He said you knew him as the man he became.”
“Sober.”
“Reliable.”
“The one who helped everybody.”
“He didn’t want to tell you he had a daughter he signed away.”
The chapter president leaned back.
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
“We knew what he was like before.”
“Did you?”
The question stopped him.
He thought.
They knew the drinking.
Fights.
Arrests.
They knew he had once disappeared for four months.
They did not know why.
Maybe there were pieces even best friends never saw.
The mother continued.
“He also thought I deserved control.”
“I had spent my childhood with adults deciding when and how I could know him.”
“When I found him, he said he would not drag me into his world unless I asked.”
“Did you ask?”
“Eventually.”
“Then why didn’t he bring you around?”
She looked ashamed.
“I said not yet.”
The president nodded.
That changed things.
“I was afraid.”
“Of us?”
“Of what he represented.”
She looked at his vest.
“When I was little, I remembered leather.”
“Motorcycles.”
“Men shouting.”
“My mother leaving.”
“Those memories aren’t fair to you.”
“But they were mine.”
The president accepted.
“Fair enough.”
“My father respected that.”
“So he met us privately.”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you he was sick?”
“Immediately.”
“When?”