When Allie and I were kids, Dad always told us this story about a motorcycle accident. He was new at the hospital then, but he remembered every detail. “The one guy’s arm was hanging off,” he’d say. “And the woman’s face was all bloody. Worse than any horror movie I’d seen.”
And he’d lean into his beer, which always put me off, since he was a doctor; And the story would get bloodier and gorier until it was Silence of the Lambs, motorcycle retelling.

I’d get into bed and stay awake and wonder what their families felt like afterwards, and how they would feel if they knew my father was telling us about it like it was some kind of movie. A few times, it made Allie cry. She was allowed to; she was a girl. I just tortured myself with what-ifs.

Dad left us when I was 16. He ran off with a nurse from the hospital, and they moved in together at a place downtown. I stole my first bike a month later.

It’s been three years, and I still ride it to his place and sit outside and wish he was dead.