Chapter 32: He Looked Back

On the last Saturday of September the clubhouse lot filled with bikes before sunrise.

I stood in the kitchen doorway with a cup of coffee and watched them come in two by two.

The same gravel, and the same cold light.

Birdie came up beside me with the baby asleep in the crook of her arm.

"She's four months old and she's already got a cut," Birdie said.

I looked at the tiny black vest the road captain had sewn himself.

It had a patch on the back the size of my palm, with a Norwegian rose stitched in red.

"Don't let her near the bikes," I said.

"I'll keep her on the porch with a blanket and the cocoa."

I kissed the baby's forehead and the top of Birdie's gray head.

Then I put the coffee down, and went to find my husband.

He stood alone by the president's bike, checking the new brake line with two fingers.

He had checked it three times already.

He wore a clean cut and the president's patch back on its left side.

When he saw me, his hands stopped moving.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey."

I wore my own cut.

The captain had given it to me the Sunday before in front of the whole table, folded in tissue paper.