He placed one hand against the workbench.
Tommy stepped toward him.
Graham cried.
Not loudly.
Not theatrically.
His shoulders shook.
Tommy grabbed the back of his neck.
Graham leaned his forehead against Tommy’s shoulder.
Cassie looked down.
Some moments became smaller when written down.
She left.
Outside, Derek sat on his motorcycle.
Helmet in both hands.
He did not look up when Cassie approached.
“You always this nosy?”
“Yes.”
He almost smiled.
Cassie sat on the curb several feet away.
For a while they said nothing.
Finally Derek spoke.
“My dad hated him.”
“Did he?”
Derek looked over.
“You heard everybody.”
“I heard what everybody remembers.”
Derek stared at her.
Cassie continued.
“Dad told me memory isn’t truth.”
“So what, my father was lying?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She looked toward the clubhouse.
“Maybe he believed his version.”
Derek’s jaw tightened.
“He spent his last year angry.”
“Angry at Tommy.”
“Angry at the outreach program.”
“Angry that the club was changing.”
He looked down at the helmet.
“Mostly angry that he was dying.”
Cassie said nothing.
Derek continued.
“He had heart failure.”
“Wouldn’t follow half the doctor’s instructions.”
“He’d sit in his garage complaining that everybody was trying to turn the Wolves into something soft.”
His voice cracked.
“I thought if I kept believing what he believed, I was keeping him.”
Cassie looked at him.
“Maybe you’re keeping the anger instead.”
Derek gave her a sharp glance.
“You seventeen?”
“Yes.”
“Annoying.”
“I get that a lot.”
He looked back at the helmet.
Cassie said:
“Tommy isn’t the villain you need him to be.”
Derek was silent.
“Neither was your dad.”
Another silence.
“Maybe they were just two men who loved the same thing differently.”
Derek looked at her properly for the first time since she had entered Rusty’s.
“You rehearsed that?”
“No.”
“Sounds rehearsed.”
“I read too much.”
He smiled faintly.
Then he started the motorcycle.
Before putting on the helmet, he said:
“When your project’s done…”
Cassie waited.
“I want to read it.”
“Okay.”
“And if you make my father look stupid, I’ll tell your dad.”
Cassie smiled.
“I’m terrified.”
He shook his head.
“You’re tougher than you look.”
Then he rode away.
The Sportster started forty minutes later.
It coughed.
Backfired.
Almost died.
Then settled into a rough idle.
Graham and Tommy stood beside it.
Cassie returned just in time to hear Tommy say:
“Still sounds terrible.”
Graham smiled.
“Sounds alive.”
That became the line Cassie wrote at the top of her next chapter.
The memorial ride had been an Iron Wolves tradition for almost thirty years.
Always the final Sunday in May.
Always starting before sunrise.
Always ending at Riverside Veterans Cemetery.
Names were read.
Bikes parked in formation.
No alcohol until after the cemetery.
No politics.
No speeches longer than necessary.
Graham proposed changing the schedule.
At the next club meeting, he stood near the pool table.
“I want to move it up.”
Hank frowned.
“To when?”
“Next month.”
“Why?”
Graham looked toward Tommy.
Then Cassie.
“Because we keep waiting for the right time to say things.”
He paused.
“Turns out the right time is usually before somebody disappears.”
Nobody argued.
The vote was unanimous.