In the hopes that they would finally confiscate the Harley I had hated my entire life, I reported my father to the police for riding his loud motorcycle through our neighborhood.
While I stared from my bedroom window as Dad cleaned the chrome on that old bike, utterly unconscious that his sixteen-year-old daughter had just denounced him like a criminal, the dispatcher wrote down our address.
My social life, my parents’ marriage, and my chances of ever being normal had all been destroyed by that motorcycle, and I wanted it gone forever.
It was the reason Mom had left. She was correct when she declared that she could no longer compete with “his other woman.” We didn’t love that bike as much as Dad did.
When the police car arrived twenty minutes later, I felt like I had won. Someone will finally show him how our family had been ruined by his addiction.
However, my father was not taken into custody by the police who emerged. Rather, he approached him gently, shook his hand, and saluted him as though they were longtime friends.
Dad pointed to our house while both guys stared straight at my window, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. With my heart pounding, I ducked down. How was he aware?
Dad knocked on my bedroom door five minutes later.
“Officer Reynolds would like to speak with you, Katie.”
Dad had never looked so disappointed in my life. I’m broken, not angry.
With his hat in his hands, the cop stood in our living room. He took out his phone and gave me a picture that altered my perception of my father and that motorcycle, rather than lecturing me about untrue allegations.
It was a photo of my dad standing next to the exact Harley in uniform when he was much younger. He was accompanied by three other men, all of whom were leaning confidently against their bikes and were all wearing military fatigues. The picture’s caption said, “Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion. 2003.”
I blinked. “What is this?”
The voice of Officer Reynolds grew softer. The unit of your father. That motorcycle serves as a remembrance in addition to being a toy. Except for your father, none of the men in that picture made it home.
The room tilted. My throat tightened. I glanced at Dad, who had a tense jaw and glassy eyes. For the first time, I saw a soldier carrying ghosts rather than a self-centered man fixated on noise and chrome.
Dad cleared his throat. “I ride it because that’s the only way I still feel like I’m riding with them, Katie, not because I adore the sound. I keep them alive that way.
My eyes were scorched by tears. I was overwhelmed by shame. I was unaware of the arguments, the slammed doors, and all those years of bitterness.
My shoulder was touched by Officer Reynolds. “Your dad saved lives.” He deserves that bike and the freedom to grieve as he sees fit. I believed you ought to be aware before passing any additional judgment on him.
Dad did not chastise me. He simply had a worn-out appearance. I was hurt.
I gulped and muttered, “I’m sorry, Dad.”
He drew me into his arms for the first time since Mom left. “I’ve already lost too much, Katie,” he remarked in a raspy voice. Don’t allow me to lose you as well.
The Harley was still loud that night. However, it didn’t sound like destruction for the first time in my life. It had the sound of survival.
I had trouble sleeping that night. I would always close my eyes and see the picture on Officer Reynolds’ phone, the proud faces of men who never returned home, and Dad standing there, alive but bearing the burden of their absence.
Harley was more than a machine. It served as a lifeline. A mobile gravestone. And I was on the verge of losing it.
I saw Dad in the garage the following morning, sitting on a stool and holding a cloth in his hands. He was gazing at the bike as if it contained the answers to all the questions no one dared to ask. I didn’t roll my eyes or gripe about the oil odor for once. I took a seat next to him.
“I was unaware,” I muttered.
He continued to stare at the bike. “I didn’t tell you. I believed that you would be protected if I kept it hidden in my own mind. Perhaps I made a mistake.
After hesitating, I questioned, “Was that the reason Mom left? Due to this?
Dad let out a long sigh. “Your mother was upset that I was unable to let go. She thought she was up against ghosts. And perhaps she was correct. However, Katie, my family always loved that bike more than I did. I simply couldn’t articulate what it meant to me.
For the first time, I realized that their marital problems were caused by grief that neither of them could convey, not merely by noise and chrome.
I began going to the garage with Dad throughout the course of the following few weeks. I only watched at first, but gradually he showed me how to properly polish the chrome, check the oil, and discover that every paint scratch had a backstory.
Then, one Saturday, he surprised me by giving me a helmet.
“Want to accompany me?” he inquired.
Despite my thumping heart, I nodded. Getting on the back of that Harley was like entering his world, which I had hated all my life. I gripped to him as the engine roared to life beneath us, not out of fear but rather because I hadn’t felt connected in years.
I expected to feel ashamed as we rode into town. Rather, I felt… proud.
I gave Mom a call a month later. I told her everything I had learnt and what Dad had told me for the first time in years. The other end of the line was silent for a long time.
“Perhaps I wouldn’t have left the way I did if I’d known,” she finally remarked in a shaky voice.
Perhaps we would never be a perfect family, and we certainly weren’t. However, the bike I believed had broken us began to mend us that summer.
Because there are instances when the things we detest the most are simply those that we still don’t fully comprehend.
And now I got it.
