Page 48 of My Veteran Biker

We finish dinner. Jim tells the story about how he met Francis's mother at a church social in 1978, the same story he tells every few weeks now. His memory's starting to go in places. Not bad yet, but getting there.

Francis and I clean up while Jim watches from the table. She washes, I dry. The same routine we've had since that first night four years ago.

When the kitchen's clean I help Jim back to his room. The converted bedroom on the ground floor, close to the bathroom like we planned.

Francis already turned down his bed earlier, laid out his pajamas. I help him change and get settled while she brings his evening medication.

"You need anything else?" I ask.

"I'm good. You two go on. I know you've got your porch time."

"We can stay if you want."

"I don't want. Go sit with your wife."

Francis kisses his forehead. "Call if you need anything."

"I will. Now go."

Outside the air is cooler than it's been all week, the first hint of fall.

We sit in the chairs on the back porch, the same chairs that were here when I bought this house years ago. Francis brings two beers from the fridge and hands me one.

We don't talk for a while. Just sit and drink and listen to the cicadas winding down for the season.

"He's getting weaker," I say eventually.

"I know."

"Probably should talk to his doctor about increasing the evening dose. Help him sleep better."

"I'll call tomorrow."

More silence. Her hand finds mine in the space between the chairs. Our fingers lace together automatically, the same way they have a thousand times over three years.

"You okay?" I ask.

"Yeah. Just tired."

"Want me to handle breakfast tomorrow? Give you a break?"

"No. I like doing it."

She squeezes my hand and I squeeze back and we sit there in the gathering dark while lights come on in houses down the street and someone two doors down starts grilling something that smells like charcoal and lighter fluid.

This is what three years of marriage looks like.

Not avoiding the hard parts but integrating them. Getting up every morning and making coffee and helping her father get dressed because his hands shake too badly to manage buttons. Coming home from club business and sitting down to dinner at six. Doing dishes together. Sitting on the porch after Jim's in bed and just being quiet together because sometimes quiet is all you need.

"I'm glad you're here," Francis says.

"Where else would I be?"

"I don't know. Anywhere else. This isn't what you signed up for when we got back together."

"This is exactly what I signed up for."

"Knox."