73
The past month, I had Den design a new website for Steve and Gail’s business, and he’d gone over it with Gail along with setting up a new computer and printer and updated internet connection for the nursery. Den’s brother set up a security system for their entire property as well. I sent a few of my prospects over to the shop on a steady basis to clean up, paint, renovate, fix. Lenore easily rearranged her schedule and took Zoë to her classes and activities.
Today, Zoë would spend the night with us as Steve and Gail had to go to Sioux Falls for more medical tests.
The girls spent the day together. Zoë wanted to shop at Lenore’s store, so Lenore took her shopping at the mall. Zoë wanted a tattoo, so Lenore bought her new makeup and gave her a makeover with cat-eye eyeliner, sparkly eye shadow, and a dark pink lipstick. We went out for an Italian dinner in town, watched a movie at home, and then Lenore and I stayed up for hours listening to our daughter’s soft snoring coming from Beck’s room down the hall.
We’d all woken up late and had fruit and pancakes for brunch. Now it was past two in the afternoon, and Gail and Steve were coming to pick up Zoë in a couple of hours. Before she left, I was going to take her for a ride on my bike.
I pulled my Harley out to the curb. Standing with Lenore, Zoë watched me, her lips pressing together.
“Finger’s been riding since he was a little boy.” Lenore zipped up Zoë’s windbreaker. “He knows everything there is to know about riding. His bike is like his best friend. It’s a part of him. You couldn’t ask for a better first ride.”
“Okay.” Zoë scrunched and unscrunched her eyes, twisting her lips. She was deliberating. She was gearing up.
Lenore swept Zoë’s hair back from her shoulders. “Can I tell you a secret?”
Zoë’s face lit up and she nodded, a slight giggle escaping her lips.
“Riding with Finger on his bike is one of my most favorite things in the world. From the very first time I did it.”
“When was that?”
“A long, long time ago. Now it’s even better.”
Zoë glanced at me and took in a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling. She went over to the bike and tried to swing her leg over it, but she couldn’t quite reach. I grabbed her leg, steadying her as she hopped up and scooted in the saddle, Lenore at her side, a hand on her lower back.
“It’s high,” Zoë said.
“You want to get down?” I asked her. “You can get down.”
“No. I want to ride with you.”
Everything inside me melted like a chocolate bar in the summer heat.
“You look great.” Lenore checked her helmet for the twentieth time. “You’re all set. Let me take a picture with your phone.” Lenore raised Zoë’s phone and took several shots of us.
“Let’s do a selfie with all of us,” said Zoë.
Lenore moved next to Zoë and took a photo of all three of us. “Perfect,” she said softly, her fingers tightening over the phone.
Small hands with fingernails painted a metallic blue clutched at the back of my jacket and let go as if she’d realized she’d made a mistake. Lenore put her hands over Zoë’s, bringing them around my middle again, pressing them into my sides. I couldn’t breathe, my heart pounded in my chest.
“Like that, okay, sweetie?” said Lenore.
“Won’t I tickle him that way?” Zoë asked. “Won’t that bother him?”
“No, it’s okay. You hold on and don’t let go.” Lenore’s voice wavered.
Zoë leaned against my back. The pressure of her weight minimal, the pressure of her overwhelming. “I won’t let go.”
My eyes slid to Lenore’s.
Molten fire, drumming heartbeats. My woman and me and our daughter.
This may not have been a perfect outcome, not having Zoë all to ourselves, Zoë never learning the truth, but at this very moment that didn’t add up to much but spilled milk. What mattered was us knowing our daughter, building a relationship.
All the kingdoms and empires in this ugly fucked up world could never add up to this sensation swelling in my veins, coursing through my heart, filling my ragged soul and binding all its thousand scars.
With precise movements I made my engine burst and rumble, and I braced.
“Eek!” Zoë’s body jumped and she held me tighter.
My eyes squeezed shut.
“That’s it. Like that.” Lenore stroked her leg. “Remember, when you get back, there’ll be brownies and ice cream.”
“Yay! My favorite,” replied Zoë.
“Mine too,” said Lenore.
I leaned back. “Zoë, you ready to party?”
“Yes!” she shouted over the steady drone of the engine.
A smile took my lips hostage as Lenore’s full eyes lifted to mine. Everything roaring inside me was written all over her face and resonated between us. Joy, sadness, elation, longing. Yet there was also a sense of achievement.
We got here, baby, through fire and blades, demons and curses, blood and plagues.
A fucking triumph.
I grinned. “We’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Lenore brushed my lips with hers and gave our daughter’s leg a final squeeze. “Have fun!”
I kicked the toe stand and set my bike on fire. I took off, gaining speed at the end of the lane. My heart expanded, filling with the music of Zoë’s squeals and the magnificent scream of my engine as we flew down the road.
And that fury erupted inside me.
But it wasn’t that brutal rage that would rise like an inferno or that black sorrow that would slide all over me and harden into a spiked shell of desolation.
No.
It was my dad scooping me up off the floor, carrying me out of that house, and setting me on his bike,
it was me and my brothers riding in perfect formation down a long highway,
it was that bruised face looking up at me in that club kitchen, her realizing that I’d come back for her,
that glorious thunder of Beck’s waterfall,
my woman’s soft lips on my skin,
the heady whisper of her gaze,
a labyrinth of vivid ink,
a cartography of compasses,
my daughter’s innocent pure laughter ringing in my ear.
I breathed it all in.
The heat of the bright, hard afternoon sun unfurled over us.
I shouted, “Hold on, Zoë.”
Holding onto me tight, my daughter answered me, “I am.”