“That’s not possible.”
The big man pulled out his phone and showed me a picture. Mason, in a vest way too big for him, sitting on a Harley with a huge grin. Behind him, a dozen bikers with their arms crossed like bodyguards.
“He never told you.” The man’s voice cracked. “Of course he didn’t. He said you’d worry.”
“Worry about what? Why is my nine-year-old at a biker clubhouse?”
He crouched down so we were eye level and put a hand on my shoulder like he’d known me for years.
“Because the day he first showed up, he walked right up to me, put his backpack down, and told me he was there to find out who his Uncle Danny was.”
The floor moved under me.
Danny was my wife Sarah’s older brother. He died sixteen years ago, four years before Mason was born. Motorcycle accident on a wet road outside of Reno. Sarah was twenty-three when it happened, and she has not spoken his name out loud once in the entire time I have known her. Her mother took down every photo of him in the house within a month of the funeral. There is a rule in that family. You do not bring up Danny. Ever. Sarah told me on our third date, before I had even met her parents, that if I ever wanted to be part of her life I had to promise never to ask.
I promised.
I have kept that promise for fourteen years.
