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“I was raised by my older sister, Mary,” Sean admitted. He noted that he hadn’t even finished his beer as he abandoned it in favor of the bourbon. “She’s twenty years older than I am. I wasn’t planned, either. I have vague memories of my parents when I was little. Just like—” Sean put his hand up near his ear and rolled it around “—flashes of their voices and fuzzy images. Old people with white hair and glasses. Though in reality they were only in their fifties. Sometimes I wonder if what I remember is real or made-up. They were very hands-off. Died within a year of each other. Heart attack for Dad and untreated diabetes for Mom. She didn’t ‘believe in it,’ from what my sister said.”
Delaney pulled her legs beneath her and tucked herself into a ball in the corner of the sofa. She sipped her bourbon and her voice got quiet, almost dreamy. “You were alone a lot, weren’t you?”
Sean paused, his glass halfway to his lips. “Takes one to know one, huh?”
She rolled back her bare shoulder in a slinky shrug that made her look wise. “Somebody’s got to raise the kids. Somebody’s got to pay the bills. When there’s only one person to do all that, the kid has to fend for herself a lot. I can tell you’ve been fending for yourself for a long time.”
Used to being the detective in the room, Sean was taken aback. “I got no complaints.”
Delaney offered a knowing smile. “You sound like my dad. Despite his rough upbringing, he never complained. Because he never complained, I felt like I never could, either. Certainly makes you work harder and take more responsibility for your life. I basically wanted to be everything he was and I guess I kind of am.” She pointed downward, toward the shop.
Sean took another sip of the bourbon, felt it going to his head. He needed to put it down now if he was going to drive home. “This Dylan’s whiskey?”
“Yeah.” She smiled at his guess.
“Bet you’ve got Dylan over there, too.” Sean nodded toward the stack of vinyl he’d spotted next to what looked like a stereo system. He got up, not waiting for her answer, and went to the records. He leafed through them as Delaney came up beside him. “So who taught your dad everything he knew?” Sean picked up the dangling thread of their earlier conversation.
Delaney watched Sean’s hands as he flipped through the vinyl. Sean made sure he handledDuke Ellington and John Coltrane,Damn the Torpedoes,Howlin’ Wolf,The Wall,Morrison Hotel,and(Pronounced ’Leh-’nérd ’Skin-’nérd)with care. He wondered if the LPs were also her father’s or if she’d bought them herself. Sean was usually good at games like that, but in this case, it could go either way, so he mentally decided on a mix of the two.
“Dad taught himself. He had to, if he wanted to go anywhere. The Indian Four had been out back, in a shed, for as long as he could remember, but it didn’t run well, and nobody used it. His father told him if he could fix it, he could have it.” Delaney shrugged. “So he did. He learned everything he could about it, saved up money, hitchhiked to bike shops. He fixed up the bike and got it running, and it’s been running ever since. It was his freedom, I guess. He’d finally found a way to escape. He could take off and it’d be just him and the road, and if he broke down, he wouldn’t have to rely on anyone because he could fix things himself.”
“Hmm,” Sean said, considering her words. “I agree with the last part.”
“What do you mean?” Delaney’s eyes narrowed, just as Sean’s fingers lit on what he’d been searching for: a black cover, an arena in darkness except for a sea of glowing flames from people’s lighters.
“Aha.” Sean pulled out the record.“Before the Flood.”He flipped it over. “Bob Dylan and The Band. Including—” he scanned the tracks “—‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.’” He smiled and slipped the vinyl halfway out. “May I?”
Delaney glanced at the record player, which, like most of her stuff, looked vintage. “Sure. But what did you mean,” she said, “that you agree with ‘the last part’?”
Sean raised the lid of the record player. Delaney slipped the LP from his hands. He didn’t argue. She blew away any dust that might be on the vinyl and placed it on the turntable.
“You said that your father liked that he could take off on the bike and go places, and that it was important to him that he know how to fix it himself, because no one else was going to fix it for him. Just like no one had ever fixed anything for him.”
Delaney carefully laid the needle on the fourth track. Just as the opening strains of Dylan’s guitar melted out the speakers, she turned and fixed him with her whiskey eyes. “What didn’t you agree with?”
Sean hesitated. He’d taken a risk when he said that, but there was no undoing it. “The part about your dad working so hard to learn how to fix the motorcycle. You said he worked so hard to fix it because it was his freedom. And yeah, I agree there’s an obvious element of truth about his need for escape.”
Delaney crossed her arms over her chest. “But?”
“But.” Sean watched her bite down on her lower lip and felt the struggle of the whiskey and his common sense warring in his head. The bourbon made him wonder what her lips tasted like—Heaven’s Door?—and his common sense reminded him that this was how his last failed relationship had started. He’d been drinking, they were close, things got steamy. Maybe—just maybe—Sean needed to rein himself in this time. Not screw things up before they even got started. Even though Delaney, vulnerable and tipsy, was almost irresistible. “Have you ever considered that, rather than looking for freedom, maybe he was looking for connection? Maybe your dad learned everything he could about that motorcycle because it’s the only family legacy he had. The only connection he had to his father before him. Everyone else had died or left. Everyone else had given up on him. Maybe he fixed up the bike because it was there, waiting for him to find, waiting for him to rescue it from the shed. Waiting for him to reconnect the missing pieces and bring it back to life.”
Delaney stared at him, her eyes bright, her lips parted slightly. The room was silent but for the strains of Dylan and The Band:
Knock, knock, knockin’...
She closed her mouth and swallowed deeply. Her eyes sparkled brighter. Then she looked around the room, avoiding his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” Sean said because that was all he had to offer when what he really wanted to do was fold her into his arms and let someone else absorb some of the sad for a while. But that would be a mistake. Sean knew that if he took her in his arms, he wouldn’t want to let her go. “I overstepped.”
Delaney cleared her throat, and as the song faded to black and the next track started—“It Ain’t Me, Babe”—she smiled a little bit. “You really got an old Harley in storage? Or you make that shit up to close Walt’s mouth?”
Sean turned his sigh of relief into a gentle laugh. He couldn’t tell if her reaction was forced recovery or genuine humor, but either way, he’d take it. “Nah, I really do. It’s an ’83 Disc Glide. My sister’s husband gave it to me when I turned sixteen. He hadn’t ridden it in years because of his bad back. He said I could have it if I didn’t tell my sister and if I was careful. I used to race it down the back roads, before everything around here was built up. I hung on to it, even after I’d deployed. Left it at my sister’s, where no one took care of it. I hung on to it, even after I got married. My ex kept trying to make me get rid of it, said it was a useless piece of junk. But I just couldn’t.”
Delaney sniffed away the remnants of whatever had gotten hold of her. “Did you say an ’83 Disc Glide?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you mean a Willie Glide?” Her eyes narrowed skeptically.
