“Don’t.” I held up my hand. “Don’t you dare talk to me about the safety of those kids. I carried Jessica Meyer from her driveway to the bus for three years after her accident. I performed CPR on Tyler Brooks when he had an asthma attack. I’ve gotten every single child home safe through forty-two years of driving, even when the roads were sheets of ice and I couldn’t feel my fingers on the wheel.”
My voice broke then, something that hadn’t happened since Margaret passed five years back.
“And now I’m dangerous? Now I’m a threat?” I stood up, my old knees protesting. “You know what, John? You tell those parents who signed that petition that for forty-two years, I’ve been exactly who I am today. The only thing that’s changed is now they’ve decided to be afraid of a man they never bothered to know.”
I walked out of his office with what dignity I could muster. But inside, something was crumbling—the faith I’d had in a community I thought I belonged to.
Home wasn’t much comfort that night. Our little ranch house felt emptier than usual without Margaret. She’d been gone five years, but sometimes the silence still caught me off guard. I wandered out to the garage where my 2003 Harley Road King waited, its midnight blue paint gleaming under the fluorescent lights.
“Just you and me now, old girl,” I murmured, running my hand along the handlebars.
I’d bought this bike after Margaret’s cancer diagnosis. Riding was the only time my mind quieted enough to process what was happening, the only place I could let the tears come without feeling like I was burdening her with my grief. The wind washed it all away, if only for a little while.
I sat on the concrete floor beside the Harley, my back against the workbench, and let the memories flood in.
Tommy Wilkins was the first to come to mind. Skinny kid with a stutter, started riding my bus in 1986. Every morning, he’d linger a few extra seconds to look at my bike parked in the school lot.
“Y-you ever g-going to let me s-sit on it, Mr. Ray?” he’d ask.
