"Then he'd stand there looking at it for an hour," Gregory added. "And he'd be proud of you. Not because you draw like him. Because you don't have to."
That spring the garage hosted a small community exhibition. Sky displayed the practice tank with the mountain road, several sketches from her notebooks, and a photograph of the finished mural. Megan helped make labels, Terry borrowed folding chairs, and Jimmy insisted on proper lighting despite being teased about running a museum. Neighbors who had never entered the Iron Jaws building came by to see the paintings. Some bought small prints, with arrangements managed through Sky's caregiver and appropriate youth guidelines so she could save the proceeds for future art supplies and education.
Near the end of the afternoon a younger child approached the mural and pointed at the smaller rider. "Who's that?" he asked. Sky looked at the painted helmet with its ring of flowers. A year earlier she would have answered by explaining who Luther was or why she had been left behind.
Now she considered the question and smiled. "Someone still figuring out where she's going," she said. The child nodded, satisfied, and wandered off to look at the motorcycles.
When the last visitor left, the crew gathered by the mural for a photograph. Gregory stood beside Lucy, Terry and his family crowded into the middle, Jimmy held a paint-stained rag as if it were part of his formal attire, and Jeff nearly knocked over a stool trying to fit into the frame. Sky stood in front with her sketchbook against her chest and the little patch sewn onto her jacket. Nobody told her to smile. She did anyway.
Afterward she took the napkin out of its protective sleeve, examined the fragile lines Luther had drawn, and placed it back inside the folder that would keep it safe. For nine years the drawing had been proof of something she was terrified of losing. It was still precious, still irreplaceable, but it no longer had to carry the whole weight of her identity. She had her own paintings now, her own friends, a room with a desk, and a future containing dates she could write down without expecting them to disappear.
Gregory locked the garage that evening while Sky waited beside the gate. The last light caught the bright marigolds beneath the fence and turned the painted letters on the sign almost gold. He asked whether she wanted to go home, and for once she did not hesitate over the meaning of the word. "Yeah," she said, swinging her backpack onto one shoulder. "I've got homework." They walked toward his old truck while the motorcycles cooled behind them, and the road ahead looked ordinary enough to travel without fear.