Laura.
Bear.
Evan.
I looked at Bear. "Who is Evan?"
Bear did not answer immediately. Then he said: "Your father."
I did not sleep that night.
Bear and the others left around midnight. Before he went, he gave me a phone number. I almost threw it away. Instead, I folded it into my wallet.
Mr. Pritchard drove me home because my hands were shaking too badly to drive. He didn't say much on the way. Once, at a red light, he looked at my burned forearm and then back at the road, and whatever he thought about the night, he kept it to himself. Six miles had never felt so long.
The five thousand dollars rode home in my front pocket, folded into a wad thick as a deck of cards. I kept pressing my palm against it through my jeans at every stop, the way you check a stove you think you left on. It was still there every time. And right behind the relief, every time, came the other thing β the photograph, riding in my other pocket where Bear had let me keep it for the walk inside, and the name Evan, which sat in my head like a word in a language I'd just learned I'd been speaking my whole life without knowing.
I rehearsed the conversation all six miles. I would be calm. I would lay it out in order: the bike, the bet, the man, the photograph β a question, not an accusation. My mother was dying. Whatever she'd hidden, she'd hidden it while working double shifts to raise me. By the time Pritchard pulled up outside our building, I had a whole speech, adult and fair.
It lasted exactly as long as it took to climb the stairs. By the door I was eighteen again and furious in a way that frightened me, furious the way you're only furious at the one person whose opinion constitutes the whole world. I stood with my key in the lock and made myself breathe. She was behind that door, in a bed by a window, with days of strength left that I could probably count. Whatever I did in the next ten minutes, we'd both remember it on whichever side of her remaining time it landed. I went in gentle. The speech could go to hell.
The apartment was dark except for the lamp beside Mom's hospital bed. Nurse Elaine was asleep in the recliner. Mom was awake.
She saw my arm. Her eyes widened. "Caleb."
I'm okay. She tried to sit up. Pain caught her. I rushed over. "Don't."
What happened?
Motorcycle.
Her face changed. Barely. But I noticed. "What motorcycle?"
I looked at her. "A broken one."
Whose?
I sat beside the bed. For several seconds, neither of us spoke. Then I placed the old photograph on her blanket.
Her face went completely white.
The oxygen machine hummed. Nurse Elaine shifted but didn't wake. Mom stared at the picture. "Where did you get this?"
A man named Bear.
Her eyes closed. I waited. "Mom."
Nothing.
Mom.
I hoped I would never hear that name again. The words cut deeper than shouting.
He says you knew him.
I did.
He says you fixed motorcycles.
Her lips trembled into the smallest smile. "A long time ago."
Why didn't you tell me?
There were many things I didn't tell you.
Apparently.
Caleb β
Who is Evan?
The smile disappeared. She opened her eyes. I had never seen that expression before. Fear. Not fear of illness. Not fear of death. Fear of me.
Bear says Evan was my father.
She began to cry. That was my answer.
I stood. "No."
Caleb.
You told me his name was Daniel.
I know.
You told me he died before I was born.
He did.
Was that even true?
Yes.
How?
She turned her face toward the window. "Mom."
I wanted to protect you.
From what?
She wouldn't answer. I slapped the photograph onto the bedside table. "From who?"
From them.
The bikers?
From everything that came with them.
I laughed bitterly. "You mean the men who just paid our rent?"
Her eyes snapped toward me. "What?"
I told her. The motorcycle. The five-thousand-dollar bet. The pinched line. My arm. Bear. Everything. As I spoke, her expression changed from fear to disbelief. When I finished, she stared at me.
You fixed his bike?
Yes.
Which one?
How would I know?
Black custom chopper? Silver eagle engraved near the rear suspension?
I remembered. There had been something chrome beneath the saddle. A wing shape. "Yes."
Mom covered her mouth. "Oh God."
What?
She began crying harder. I moved closer despite myself. "What is it?"
That bike was Evan's.
My breath stopped. "What?"
Bear rebuilt it. She touched the photograph. "After the accident."
The room became very small. "What accident?"
Mom looked at me. "He died on that motorcycle."
I recoiled. "You said he died before I was born."
He did.
On that bike?
Yes.
Then why is Bear riding it?
Because Bear was his brother.
The words landed strangely. "Actual brother?"
No. She smiled sadly. "Closer, sometimes."
I sat. My anger had nowhere to go. Mom took my hand.
Your father's name was Evan Harris.
I waited.
He and Bear opened that shop when they were twenty-three. I came in looking for a job. They laughed at me. Her smile grew. "So I fixed a transmission neither of them could diagnose."
Despite everything, I almost smiled. "That sounds like you."
You didn't know that version of me.
No. You made sure of it.
Pain crossed her face. "I did."
She breathed slowly. "I fell in love with Evan."