Page 1 of My Veteran Biker

Chapter 1 — Francis

The heat sits wrong in Bloomfield.

It's been sitting wrong since I turned off the highway an hour ago, following Route 9 through fields that should be gold by late August but look pale instead. The cicadas are loud enough to hear through closed windows and air conditioning that barely cuts the temperature inside the car.

My phone buzzes in the cup holder.

Dad, probably. Asking when I'll arrive, asking if I stopped for lunch, asking questions that are really just him checking I'm still coming.

I don't pick it up. I'll be there in ten minutes and then he can see me with his own eyes and stop needing the reassurance.

The road curves and I pass a long gravel driveway with motorcycles parked in a line outside a low building set back from the road. Men standing near them, one leaning against the porch railing.

They're too far away to see clearly but close enough that I notice the way they're standing.

I've seen motorcycle clubs before. There was one in Harrisburg near the office park where I worked. They drank at a bar two blocks over and mostly kept to themselves.

I don't slow down. I keep driving and two minutes later I'm passing the Bloomfield town sign, and then I'm on Aspen Street where my father has lived for thirty-three years in a house with blue shutters and a porch that he built himself the summer I turned nine.

The lawn's been mowed recently but the hedges need trimming.

I pull in beside his truck in the driveway and sit for a moment with the engine still running and the air conditioning blowing on my face.

I can do this.

I turn off the car.

The heat hits me the second I open the door. Thick, dense, the kind that makes breathing feel like work. I'm wearing a loose cotton shirt and jeans and my body's already too warm, sweat gathering under my breasts and at the small of my back.

Even now I haven't figured out how to dress for August in the Midwest without feeling like I'm suffocating.

The front door opens before I reach it.

"Frannie."

Dad's shoulders are still broad, but his shirt hangs differently than it did months ago when I visited for Christmas, the fabric loose where it should pull across his chest.

His hands reach for me and there's a tremor in his fingers, subtle enough that someone else might miss it.

"Hi, Dad."

He pulls me into a hug that smells like the same soap he's used my entire life and something medicinal underneath it.

When he lets go his eyes are bright in a way that makes my throat tight.

"You hungry?" he says. "I made turkey sandwiches, the ones you like."

"I'm good. I ate on the road."

His face does something small, a flicker around his mouth that he covers by turning toward the kitchen. "Well, they're there if you want them later."

I should've lied. Should've said I was starving, should've let him feed me because that's what he needs right now.

To feel useful.

But I'm already following him inside where the air is cooler but still warm, the old AC unit humming without quite keeping up with the temperature climbing past ninety.

The living room looks the same. Same couch, same photos on the mantle, same rug that's been here since I was twelve.