Page 27 of Her Wounded Biker
She bounces back to her seat.
Eight years, and my first instinct is still to assume the worst. But I’m not twenty-two anymore.
Twenty-two-year-old me looked at Kilian Rutherford and saw a predator. She saw the tattoos and the leather, and she suspected him. Accused him of hurting the child he would burn the world down to protect.
I was so wrong about him that the memory still makes my face hot.
But I’ve grown since then. Not perfect, clearly, because my pulse still raced from Leonie’s drawing. But better. I’d like to think I know better now than to let a picture tell me a whole story. I’ve learned how to wait, because until I have everything, I’m only ever projecting my own bias onto someone else’s reality.
But I’m glad I was wrong about Kilian. It’s the best mistake I have ever made. Because being wrong led me to follow him. And following him led me to the rest of my life.
“Me next!” Rosie is already standing, drawing in hand, walking to the front. Then she holds up her card, and I narrow my eyes.
It’s a flame.
A single, tiny flame the size of my nail on an A7 card. It’s red and sitting right in the middle of the page, with nothing else around it.
My daughter drew a microscopic flame for Father’s Day card that she’ll give to Kilian.
“This,” Rosie says, holding the paper higher, “is my dad’s favorite food.”
The class stares. I stare.
“Pizza,” she clarifies.
I look at the drawing again. Good thing I have perfect vision, and I can see the tiny flame is wider at the bottom, pointed at the top, with a small curved line underneath that I now realize is supposed to be the crust, or maybe the plate it sits on, and—
Oh,it’s the logo. The little flame logo from Hillcrest Pizza.
Okay. Passed. Barely.
“My dad loves pizza,” Rosie continues. “For Father’s Day, I’m going to give him pizza.” She lowers the drawing. “Because when my dad buys pizza, he buys four boxes. One for him, one for mom, one for my sister, and one for me. But then he eats one slice and then he says he’s full and he doesn’t want any more, and me and my sister and my mom eat the rest.” She pauses. “But I have a sus-pi-cion. I think my dad loves pizza. So for Father’s Day, I’m going to get him two more boxes of his own. And nobody else is allowed to eat it. Not even Mom.”
My throat closes. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth and breathe through my nose, slow, controlled, the way I’velearned to do when Rosie does something that splits my head open.
Rosie is right about her father. That’s exactly what he does. One slice. Every single time, then pushes the rest toward us. He does it with pizza. He does it with blankets. The seat closest to the heater in winter. He gives and gives and gives. He offers us the world. He protects with his life. And then he pretends he doesn’t need any of it. I know that now.
I swallow heavy and compose myself before smiling at my daughter.
“That sounds like a perfect Father’s Day plan, Rosie. Well done.”
THE END
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