At home, Cody put his helmet on the table, looked at the photograph once more in the dark, and then put the phone down, face down. He did not sleep for a long time, and when he did, he dreamed of a brother still alive, laughing, waiting at the end of a long road, and Cody rode toward him, and rode, and never quite arrived.
Sarah Hart arrived on a Friday afternoon with a suitcase that had wheels that clicked on the pavement and a nurse's habit of looking at a person first and asking questions second. She stood in the doorway of her mother's small house and looked at Evelyn the way she had looked at her when she was a girl and had come home from school with a scraped knee, as if checking for the injury before she checked for the story. Evelyn hugged her, and Sarah hugged her back, and for a moment neither of them said anything about the motorcycle, or the garage, or the six years, because a hug could hold all of those things without naming them.
You look tired, Sarah said, at last, and Evelyn laughed, because Sarah had been saying that since she was twelve.
So do you, Evelyn said. "Denver is not agreeing with you."
Denver is fine, Sarah said. "Night shifts are not."
They carried the suitcase inside, and Sarah put her coat on the hook by the door, and the house smelled of coffee and lemon cleaner, and the kitchen was the same kitchen, and the table was the same table, except that on the wall above the table, in a plain wooden frame, was a folded piece of paper, and Sarah stopped when she saw it, and her hand went to her mouth.
Mom, she said.
Evelyn nodded. She had framed the note the winter after she found it, when the garage door had been open for months and the fear had loosened its grip enough for her to look at the words without crying every time. The paper was yellowed at the edges, and Daniel's handwriting was uneven, and the four words were exactly as he had written them.
Don't let fear win.
Sarah read them aloud, softly, the way a person reads a prayer in a church when they are not sure anyone is listening. Then she turned to her mother, and her eyes were bright, and Evelyn saw in her daughter's face the same look Daniel had worn in the garage, the look of a person who understood something and did not yet know what to do with it.
You kept it, Sarah said.
I keep it where I can see it, Evelyn said. "Your father knew what he was doing."
They talked through the afternoon about work and weather and the neighbors, and neither mentioned the scratch until Sarah went to the garage to fetch a sweater and came back with her arms crossed and her jaw set in a way that reminded Evelyn, suddenly, of Daniel trying not to worry her.
Mom, Sarah said. "The tank."
Evelyn did not pretend she did not know what her daughter meant. She had polished the scratch until it was mostly gone, until only a thin silver line remained where the key had caught the black paint, a line you had to look for in the right light, but Sarah had found it at once, because Sarah was a nurse and nurses notice what is broken.
It was a key, Evelyn said. "A Friday night. No one saw it happen. Or no one would say so."
Who would do that? Sarah asked, and her voice was steady, but her hands were not.
Evelyn told her the truth, as much of it as she knew, which was not very much: the younger riders, the loud ones, the boy named Cody who liked an audience, the phone held up to film, the jokes about an old bike that ought to be retired. She told her about Ray, and about Murphy, and about Pete, and about the way the regulars at the Roadhouse had begun to watch the far corner of the lot the way people watch a door they expect trouble to come through. She did not tell her about Frank, not yet, because that was a promise she had made to herself, and because Sarah did not need to carry that worry home to Denver.
And you still go? Sarah asked.
I still go, Evelyn said. "It is my bike. It is my Friday. I am not giving either one to a boy with a key."
Sarah looked at her mother for a long moment, and then she did something Evelyn had not expected: she smiled, a small, tired, proud smile, and she said, "Dad would have liked that answer."
That night Sarah told stories about the hospital, Evelyn told stories about the office, and after dinner they washed the dishes together, and for a little while the scratch felt very far away.
The next morning was Saturday, and the light came in pale and clean, and Ray Delgado arrived at nine with his own bike and a spare helmet and a grin that said he had been planning this since Sarah's plane had landed. He had promised Evelyn, the week before, that he would take Sarah out to the lake, the way he took Evelyn on Sunday mornings, and Sarah, who had worried when her mother learned to ride and had then understood, stood on the porch in her jeans and a borrowed jacket and looked at the motorcycle the way a person looks at a horse they are not quite sure they trust.
You don't have to, Evelyn said.
I know, Sarah said. "I want to."