Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
Tyler checked something.
“Again.”
Walter tried.
The engine turned longer.
A cough.
Everyone froze.
Walter looked at Rick.
Rick smiled.
“It wants to live.”
Walter tried again.
The engine coughed.
Then fired.
A deafening roar filled the parking lot.
Smoke poured from the exhaust.
Walter jumped slightly.
Tyler shouted.
Rick laughed.
The engine stumbled, caught, and settled into a rough idle.
Walter did not cheer.
He simply stood there.
Tears filled his eyes.
For thirty-seven years, the motorcycle had been silent.
Now it was alive.
The sound traveled through Walter's chest.
He could almost hear Daniel shouting over it.
Come on, Walt!
Rick placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You okay?”
Walter nodded.
He wiped his eyes.
“Dust.”
Rick looked around the clean parking lot.
“Sure.”
The engine suddenly died.
Tyler laughed.
Walter looked at him.
“Don't start.”
“Hey, it ran.”
“For twenty seconds.”
“Twenty-three.”
“You counted?”
“Absolutely.”
Walter smiled.
Rick crouched beside the motorcycle.
“We've still got work.”
Walter touched the blue fuel tank.
“But it ran.”
“Yes.”
For the first time since the project began, Rick believed they might actually make the deadline.
Three days later, a letter arrived at Apex.
It was addressed to Walter.
There was no return address.
Walter recognized the handwriting immediately.
Emily.
He sat alone in Rick's office and opened it.
There were only a few lines.
Uncle Walter,
I'm glad you're coming to the wedding. I want you to know that I invited you because Noah deserves to know you. I don't want October 17th to become a day for reopening old arguments. Please don't bring the motorcycle.
Walter read the final sentence again.
Then again.
Rick entered several minutes later.
“You all right?”
Walter handed him the letter.
Rick read it.
“That's pretty clear.”
Walter nodded.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don't know.”
Rick returned the letter.
“She specifically asked you not to bring it.”
“I can read.”
“I'm just saying—”
“I know what you're saying.”
Walter stood.
For the first time since Rick had met him, he looked truly old.
Not physically.
Defeated.
“I thought giving it back would fix something.”
Rick leaned against the desk.
“Maybe it isn't yours to fix.”
Walter looked at him.
“You spent forty years making decisions because you thought you knew what Emily needed.”
Walter flinched.
Rick continued carefully.
“If she says she doesn't want the motorcycle at her son's wedding, maybe listening to her is more important than finishing it.”
Walter stared through the window.
The blue motorcycle stood almost complete.
“So we stop?”
“That's your decision.”
Walter remained silent for a long time.
Then he folded the letter.
“No.”
Rick raised an eyebrow.
“We finish.”
“And the wedding?”
“I won't bring it.”
Rick nodded.
Walter walked back toward the motorcycle.
“Why finish it?”
Walter placed a hand on the seat.
“Because giving it away isn't the only promise I made.”
“To whom?”
“My brother.”
The night before Daniel died, Walter sat beside his hospital bed.
Daniel had become thin.
Too thin.
The cancer had reduced the energetic young man Walter remembered to a shadow beneath white sheets.
But Daniel's eyes were still alive.
“Bike still running?” Daniel whispered.
Walter laughed.
“You're dying and you're asking about your motorcycle?”
“Priorities.”
Walter shook his head.
“Yeah. Running fine.”
“Emily gets it.”
“I know.”
“Not now.”
“Obviously.”
“When she's ready.”
Walter nodded.
Daniel looked at him.
“Promise me something.”
“What?”
“Don't let it become furniture.”
Walter smiled.
“I won't.”
“Machines are supposed to move.”
“I know.”
“People too.”
Walter frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel looked toward the window.
“Don't spend your whole life standing still because I'm gone.”
Walter never forgot those words.
Yet that was exactly what he had done.
After Daniel's death, he had placed the motorcycle in his garage.
Years passed.
His wife, Margaret—not Daniel's wife, but Walter's own Margaret—had repeatedly encouraged him to call Emily.
He always found reasons not to.
Next Christmas.
Next birthday.
When things calmed down.
When Emily was older.
When he could explain himself better.
Then Margaret died.
Walter discovered something cruel about time.
It never waited for people to become ready.
Now, decades later, the motorcycle was running again.
Perhaps the promise was not about Emily.
Perhaps it had always been about Walter.
Machines were supposed to move.
People too.
Five days before the wedding, the motorcycle was ready for its first road test.
Rick insisted on riding it.
Walter objected.
“It's my neck,” Rick said.
“My motorcycle.”
“My shop.”
Walter folded his arms.
“I rebuilt half that engine.”
“And that's exactly why I'm riding it first.”
Tyler handed Rick a helmet.
Walter muttered something impolite.
Rick laughed.
He climbed onto the motorcycle.
The old blue Harley started after two attempts.
The engine sounded stronger now.
Deep.
Steady.
Alive.
Rick eased onto the road.
Walter watched until he disappeared.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Walter became restless.
“He should be back.”
Tyler checked his phone.
“Give him time.”
Fifteen minutes.
Walter walked toward the road.
Then they heard it.
The unmistakable engine note.
Rick appeared around the corner.
He accelerated.
The motorcycle surged forward smoothly.
Walter smiled.
Rick returned to the parking lot and stopped.
“Well?” Walter asked.
Rick removed the helmet.
“She pulls left.”
Walter's smile vanished.
Rick paused.
Then grinned.
“And she's absolutely beautiful.”
Walter punched him lightly in the shoulder.
“You're an idiot.”
Rick laughed.