Deeply, painfully ashamed.
While my friends’ parents were doctors, lawyers, and business owners, my father worked as a motorcycle mechanic in a small garage at the edge of town.
His hands were always stained with grease.
His clothes smelled faintly of gasoline.
And everywhere he went, he rode the same loud, aging Harley that rattled windows when he pulled into the school parking lot.
I hated that bike.
Every time it roared outside my high school, I prayed my friends wouldn’t notice.
Sometimes they did.
Continue on the next page:
