When the Road Went Silent novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Church

Maxine walks into church. Kayla sits in her chair and the club votes six to five to put her out. She slaps Kayla, loses her house keys, and finds Ward at the gate with her father's truck and a key.

I slept in my truck at a boat ramp on the lake.

At seven-thirty I pulled my braid tight and fished my father's ring out from under my shirt.

I let it hang outside my collar where everyone could see it.

Then I drove back to the clubhouse.

The lot was full.

Every bike in the club was parked in a row, and Cade's was at the front.

Church was the back room, with a long scarred table and twelve chairs.

The brothers called it church and nobody who wasn't patched went in.

I walked in anyway.

The room went quiet.

Cade sat at the head of the table in my father's chair.

He had never once sat in it while Gene was alive.

Kayla Brisco sat in the corner by the window, in the chair where I used to sit and do the books.

She was small and blonde, and she wore a club jacket that was not hers.

It was mine, and he had taken it from my closet.

She smiled at me.

It was a nice smile, which made it worse.

"Maxine," Cade said. "You came. Good. This is easier with you here."

"Easier for who?"

"For the club." He stood. "Brothers, we have a motion. My wife has abandoned her home and slandered the president in front of this table. I move that the club strike her name and her protection."

Her protection.

That meant no brother would answer if I called.

That meant no club roof over my head, anywhere in the county.

"Second," Boone Tackett said, before Cade had finished.

He had been waiting to say it.

"I'm not your wife," I said. "You made me stop being that yesterday."

"Sit down, Max."

"I'll stand."

Cade looked around the table.

"Vote. Hands."

I watched them go up.

Boone's hand went up first, then the two men who drank with him, then two more.

Six, with Cade's own.

Four hands stayed on the table.

Those were the old men, the ones who had ridden beside my father.

One of them looked at me and shook his head slowly.

Ward Hennessy sat at the far end and did not move.

His hands were flat on the wood.

He did not raise them and he did not lower his eyes.

"Deacon," Cade said. "Your vote."

"I abstain," Ward said.

His voice was rough and low.

I stared at him.

He had texted me last night to come, and now he sat there and let it happen.

"Six to four," Cade said. "The motion carries."

He said it flatly, without looking at me.

Kayla stood up from her corner.

She walked past me and stopped at the wall where my father's photograph hung in a plain black frame.

He was grinning on his bike, with a beer in one hand and his hair blown flat.

"Is this the old man?" Kayla said.

She reached up and tapped the glass with one pink nail.

"Cade told me he was a drunk who left this place a mess."

I crossed the room in three steps.

My open hand cracked across her face so hard her head turned and her earring flew off.

The room went dead still.

Kayla put her palm to her cheek.

Her eyes filled right away, and she looked at Cade.

"She hit me," she said. "She hit the baby."

"I hit your face," I said. "The baby can stay out of it."

Cade came around the table fast.

Two brothers caught his arms before he reached me, and I saw Boone smile.

"Get her out," Cade said. "Now."

"I'm going."

"Keys." He held out his hand, shaking. "The house. Give them to me."

I took my house key off the ring and dropped it on the floor between us.

It rang once against the boards.

He bent and picked it up.

I took my father's photograph down off the wall.

Nobody stopped me.

The old men at the table watched me do it and none of them spoke.

I carried the frame past Ward, past Boone, past the door of church, through the bar where I had served beer for seven years, and out into the lot.

The morning sun made me squint.

I stood there holding my father's face against my chest.

I had no house, no husband, no club and no plan.

I heard boots on the gravel behind me.

"Max."

I turned.

Ward stood ten feet away with his hat in his hand.

I had never seen him without it indoors.

"You abstained," I said.

"I know."

"You told me to come."

"I know that too."

"Why would you do that?"

He didn't answer.

He looked at the photograph in my arms, and his throat moved.

Then he reached into his vest and held out his fist.

I looked at it.

He opened it, and a brass key lay on his palm with a faded paper tag.

The tag said, in my father's handwriting, "For Maxine."

"He gave me this four years ago," Ward said. "Three days before he died."

"What does it open?"

"He told me to hold it until the day Cade put you out."

My fingers closed over it.

"He knew?" I said.

"He knew something," Ward said. "Follow my bike."

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