“What?”
“A choice.”
Toby watched him.
Silas crouched again.
“You like motorcycles?”
Toby hesitated.
“They’re loud.”
Bones snorted.
Silas almost smiled.
“Good answer.”
Toby looked confused.
Silas continued:
“You ever want one when you’re grown, that’s your business.”
He tapped Toby gently on the shoulder.
“But nobody in my club is putting colors on you. Nobody’s recruiting you. Nobody’s telling you your father’s blood means you owe us a life.”
Bones shifted.
Silas looked at him.
“That understood?”
Bones nodded immediately.
“Understood.”
Silas looked back at Toby.
“Your father spent too much to give you another road.”
Toby held the lighter.
“What road?”
“Whatever one you choose.”
The following morning, the Rusty Anchor opened later than usual.
Silas had not slept.
He sat alone in the back office with Elias’s old lighter temporarily resting on his desk because Toby had asked him to clean it before returning it.
Silas had spent an hour with a soft cloth removing years of tarnish without touching the deeper scratches.
He discovered a mark on the bottom.
A tiny gouge.
Silas remembered exactly where it came from.
Elias had dropped the lighter onto concrete during an argument in 1971.
For the first time in fifteen years, Silas laughed at the memory instead of grieving it.
Bones appeared in the doorway.
“Lawyer called.”
Silas looked up.
“And?”
“The bank will meet.”
“Good.”
“Sarah’s mortgage can be cleared legally. Medical accounts too, but it’ll take paperwork.”
“Do it.”
Bones stepped inside.
“Silas.”
“What?”
“The chapter’s going to ask questions.”
“Let them.”
“You’re talking about a lot of money.”
Silas leaned back.
“My money first.”
Bones frowned.
“Your personal account?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Silas stared at him.
“Neither did Elias.”
Bones became quiet.
Silas looked down at the lighter.
“He left everything.”
“Us too.”
“Yes.”
Bones waited.
“You angry?”
Silas smiled bitterly.
“I don’t know what I am.”
Bones sat.
For twenty years, very few men had spoken to Silas without waiting to be invited.
Bones was one.
Silas said:
“I spent half my life believing somebody killed him.”
“They did.”
“You know what I mean.”
Bones nodded.
Silas ran his thumb along the lighter.
“He chose to leave.”
“That bothers you.”
“It should.”
“Does it?”
Silas thought.
“Yes.”
Then:
“Not the way it did yesterday.”
Bones leaned back.
“He had a kid.”
“He had a chance.”
“At what?”
“Being something else.”
Bones looked around the office.
“And was he?”
Silas stared at Elias’s lighter.
“For six years.”