Page 100 of Roadrunner

“Martina.”

She nodded toward my cup. “Drink your coffee.”

I drank my coffee.

The street was quiet. The desert morning was doing what it always did. Bright and immediate. A roadrunner crossed the end of the driveway and disappeared on the other side without acknowledging us.

“He’s good for Arthur,” Martina said.

“I know.”

“Better than good,” she said. “That boy has opened up since we got here. Have you noticed?”

“I’ve noticed.”

“He laughs differently,” she said. “It comes from somewhere deeper now.” She looked at her cup. “Before, his laugh was polite. It was something he did because the situation called for it.” She paused. “Now it’s real.”

I looked at the street.

“Riley did that,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“You did it too,” she said. “By bringing him here. By having the courage to come back.” She glanced at me. “Give yourself some credit.”

I said nothing.

“Alex.”

“I’m trying,” I said.

She accepted that.

We sat on the porch and drank our coffee and listened to the desert morning and waited.

I heard the truck before I saw it.

The complaint of Riley’s engine. The squeak from the rear suspension that he refused to have looked at. The exhaust note I’d been able to identify from a half mile away for months now.

I set my cup down.

The truck came around the corner at the end of the street. Something in the bed. Long and upright and wrapped in cardboard, strapped down with yellow tie-downs.

I stood up.

Martina stood beside me.

The truck came down the street slowly. The box in the bed was large. Larger than I’d initially registered. Long and rectangular and printed on the side in bold black letters.

Yamaha.

I knew what was in it before the truck stopped.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Martina said.

“He’s eleven,” I said.