Lily reached across the table.
Her small hand touched his wrist.
“Then they should have.”
That sentence hit him harder than any fist ever had.
Bear lowered his head.
The girl who had once cried for him in a wrecked car was now comforting him.
The old biker laughed once, but the sound broke in the middle.
Daniel looked away to give him privacy.
The regulars did the same.
Outside, rain tapped gently against the windows.
For the first time in many years, Bear sat somewhere without wanting to leave.
PART 3
Lily came back the next Saturday.
Bear was outside polishing his motorcycle.
She appeared beside him carrying a paper bag.
“You again,” he said.
“Yes.”
“What’s in the bag?”
“Cookies.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“Are you trying to make me fat?”
She considered this.
“No.”
“Good.”
Lily sat on an overturned crate and watched him work.
Bear tried not to notice that she had grown comfortable with him immediately.
It frightened him.
Not Lily herself.
The comfort did.
Because comfort created expectations.
Expectations created responsibility.
And responsibility was the first step toward losing someone.
Still, when she asked questions, he answered them.
Why did motorcycles sound different?
Because engines had personalities.
Was his bike old?
Older than her father’s car.
Could she ride one?
Not yet.
Why did everyone call him Bear?
“Because I’m devastatingly handsome.”
Lily stared at him.
“No.”
Bear laughed.
She smiled.
By the end of the afternoon, she had eaten half the cookies herself and drawn another picture.
This time it was Bear’s motorcycle.
He taped it inside the bar.
The following week, Lily returned.
Then the week after that.
Daniel always came too, sometimes staying for coffee while Lily sat with Bear and drew.
Bear told himself it was temporary.
He had learned that temporary was a useful lie.
It allowed a man to accept happiness without admitting he wanted it.
One evening, Lily brought a school assignment.
“Can you help me?”
“With what?”
“I have to draw my family.”
Bear looked at the blank paper.
“Well, you have your dad.”
She drew Daniel.
“You have your grandma?”
She drew an older woman.
“Any cousins?”
She shook her head.
Then she looked at Bear.
“Can I draw you?”
The question was simple.
The answer was not.
Bear stared at the paper for so long that Lily’s face fell.
“You don’t have to,” she whispered.
Bear took the pencil.
“No,” he said. “I want to.”
He helped her draw a motorcycle.
Then Lily drew him standing beside it.
When she finished, she wrote three words above his head.
MY BIG BEAR.
Bear went home that night and did not sleep.
At two in the morning, he opened the old metal box beneath his bed.
Inside were photographs.
A young woman with dark hair.
A little boy with a missing front tooth.
A birthday cake.
A camping trip.
His son.
Ethan.
Bear had not seen Ethan in fourteen years.
He knew where he lived.
That was the worst part.
The distance had never been geographic.
It was always fear.
Fear that Ethan hated him.
Fear that an apology would be too late.