The Biker Who Walked Her Home

“Mr. Decker. I owe you an apology,” he said. “I gave you my word, and I went and crossed that street. I want you to know I wouldn’t have, except…”

“Don’t,” Shane said. It came out hoarse. “Don’t you apologize to me.”

Then he just stood there. I could see him working at it. He is not a man who has had much practice. His daddy never said those words to him one time that I know of, and he had told me once, early on, like it was a point of pride, that he had never needed to say them himself.

The monitor beeped along. Nobody helped him.

“Daddy,” Lily said.

“Just a minute, bug.”

“You have to say sorry.”

“Lily.”

“You make me.” She said it plainly. She wasn’t being smart. She was quoting the rules of our house back to the man who wrote them. “You say it doesn’t count unless it’s out loud. And you have to say what for.”

Shane looked at his daughter. Then he looked at the man in the bed, and he said it. Out loud, and what for.

“I’m sorry I called the sheriff on you. Twice.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry for what I said to you in your own yard, in front of her. I looked at you one time and I decided what you were. And the whole while, you were doing my job. Two blocks from where I was sitting.”

His voice cracked down the middle. He kept going anyway.

“She came to me. She told me. And I told her to hush, because that’s what I was told when I was her size. My little girl had to go find a stranger to be her daddy for two blocks a day. And when she found one, I ran him off.” He turned the cap around in his hands. “I don’t know how a man makes that right. But I’m sorry. I am sorry, Gus.”

It was the first time he had ever said the man’s name.

Gus was quiet for a while. He patted Lily’s hand with those two fingers.

“You weren’t wrong to watch,” he said at last. “A man ought to watch who’s near his girl. If I’d seen me coming up the sidewalk with Katie, I’d have called the law too.” The corner of his beard moved. “You were watching the wrong fella, that’s all. That’s easy done.”

“You could have told me. That first day. You could have knocked on my door and told me to my face what kind of father I was.”

“She asked me not to. I wasn’t about to break my word to a seven-year-old in the first five minutes.” He shifted on the pillow. “Besides. I asked the Lord for eleven years what He was keeping me around for. I got pretty short with Him about it. Then a little bit of a thing in a purple backpack asks me would I walk slow.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t going to argue with that.”

I had to go stand by the window.

“One more thing,” Gus said. “That boy. Kyle. Go easy.”

Shane’s jaw tightened. “Go easy.”

“I stood on that corner and watched him eat her lunch. He didn’t throw it away. He didn’t show it off to anybody. He got behind the fence and he ate all of it, fast, the bread bag and all, near enough. A boy doesn’t eat like that out of meanness.” He closed his eyes. “Somebody ought to see about him. I was going to. I ran out of time.”