Every school play, every parent-teacher conference, every scraped knee, every broken heart. He was there. Always in his leather vest, his grey beard braided, his massive frame somehow the gentlest presence in any room when I needed him.
When I met Danny three years ago at a bike rally, Dad was the first person I told. Danny rode a Kawasaki Vulcan, worked as an EMT, and understood what motorcycles meant to me. Dad liked him immediately. They’d spend hours talking about bikes, riding together, working on engines in our garage.
We planned a small wedding. Fifty people, backyard ceremony, nothing fancy. But the one thing that mattered most to me was having Dad walk me down the aisle. I’d dreamed about it since I was a little girl—my big, scary-looking biker father in a suit, giving me away to the man I loved.
The morning of the wedding, Dad was acting strange. He kept checking his phone, stepping outside to take calls, his face tight with worry. I asked him three times if everything was okay.
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