My mom and dad used to take Berk and me biking on the river trail.

Like we were normal people.

Like we didn’t actually LIVE on the trail, but we were a family that had a house and chickens and a dog and maybe a playground all our own and we rode our bikes because we liked the sound of the river and the peacefulness of the trees and not because it was how we got home from school or how we got to the grocery store.

And we said hi to people, especially Dad who knew just about every person everywhere he went, and Mom would laugh and you could tell she loved him and loved that he was so popular and funny. And then we stopped and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and real carrot sticks that Mom had peeled and cut, and once we even had lemonade.

I think about that and I wonder if he thinks about it.

I wonder if he misses it.

One time I asked Mom if we could go on a ride after he left and she said, “Go ahead.”

And I said, “Can you come, too?”

And she said, “I’m exhausted.”

I sat next to her on the couch. She smelled like cleaning solution and her hands looked old. Way older than she was.

“What about tomorrow?” I asked.

“I have to work.”

“What about on your day off?”

“I have to run errands and Judy wants me to come over and do her house.”

“You’re cleaning Judy’s house?”

Judy was one of my mom’s friends from high school.

Mom laid her head on the back of the couch and closed her eyes. “She’s paying me double, so yeah.”

“Can I come help?”

She opened one eye. “You want to help me?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

And I suddenly really did. Really.

She closed the eye again. “Nah. You need to stay here and watch Berk.”

I laid my head on the couch, too. I was tempted to ask if me and Berk could come but I already knew Judy wouldn’t like that.

I watched as she sat there, or slept there, whatever she was doing, her chest going in and out and in and out.

She was so little. Like a bird. And some days she looked like she was going to break. Or get shot out of the sky and fall down dead.

I never asked her to go biking again.