Chapter 1
On the morning of her father’s funeral, Jen took the keys to her Indian and left before Kristen came downstairs.
She did not try to be quiet. The bike would wake half the house when she started it. But by then she would already be moving, and Kristen would have to watch her go from a window instead of asking her to stay.
Jen left her phone on the kitchen table. She placed it beside the empty coffee cup where Kristen could not miss it.
No call. No argument. No chance for her wife to say Please.
Jen had made herself useful in every way she could since Dan died. She had driven people where they needed to go, carried their bags, repaired things that were not broken. She had stood beside Kristen while they chose a coffin. She had answered questions about Dan’s friends, his club, the songs he liked. Each task had given her hands something to do while the rest of her stood still.
At the funeral, there would be no task left. She would have to sit and hear her father spoken of in the past tense.
Dan had never been good with words. When Jen was young, he had set a motorcycle part on the workbench between them and shown her how to fit it back into place. If he saw that she was unhappy, he found her a job beside him. She had learned to hear what he meant in the scrape of a chair pulled up to the bench, in a tool placed ready at her hand.
She wished there were a tool for this.
After his death, Jen had gone to Dina’s shop again and again. Dina had tattooed the roses, koi, blossoms, and waves already covering Jen’s arms. She knew Dan had died. She did not ask Jen to explain each new piece of ink.
One afternoon Dina was working on a narrow stretch of color near Jen’s wrist. It should have been easy. Jen had sat through longer sessions without complaint. But the needle caught on a place already sore, and suddenly she could see Dan’s hand resting on a workbench that no longer existed, his fingers stained with oil.
She began to cry.
Dina switched off the machine. In the sudden quiet, Jen heard herself trying to breathe. She bent forward, and Dina came around the chair to hold her.
“I know someone,” Dina whispered after a while. “A woman called Cassandra.”
Jen wiped her face with the back of her hand. “A doctor?”
“No.”
Dina did not let go of her. “She might be able to help with what you’re carrying. I can ask if she’ll see you. But listen to me, Jen: don’t agree to anything until you know what she wants.”
Jen heard help. It was the only word that stayed with her.
“Ask her,” she said. “Please. I’ll pay.”
“That may not be what it costs.”
“Then ask her anyway.”
Dina studied her for a long moment before she nodded.
Late the next evening, a message arrived on Jen’s phone. Cassandra had agreed to see her. There was a time, an address, and directions through a stretch of forest Jen had never visited.
The appointment was on the day of Dan’s funeral.
Jen read the message twice. She could still go to the service and tell Dina she needed another time. She could sit beside Kristen. She could let the people who loved Dan tell stories about him.
Instead, she pictured the forest road. No one waiting to take her hand. No one asking her to speak.
In the morning, she left her phone on the kitchen table and rode away.
The road out of Martin was empty. As the houses gave way to trees, Jen opened the throttle and felt the engine answer beneath her. She knew how to ride toward something. She had not yet learned how to remain where she was when grief came looking for her.
Cassandra’s house lay somewhere beyond the tree line.
Jen followed the directions Dina had sent, while behind her the church filled with people who had come to say goodbye to Dan.
