Breed Me On The Bike

I'M THE RECEIPT

CORA

He flinches at the volume of my voice, but I do not care.

“What did you do with a million dollars?” I ask again. “Because I have been eating leftover taquitos and putting yogurt pretzels back at checkout so I could fit into a dress you already knew I was never going to walk down an aisle in. I have been counting tips in my head on the drive home. I have been helping you keep the lights on in this place since I was a kid. So you need to look at me and tell me where a million dollars went.”

“It did not go into one place.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It went into keeping this shop open,” he says. “The house. Payroll. Bills. Things kept piling up, and I kept borrowing to cover them. Eventually, I owed more than I could ever pay back.”

“You borrowed a million from a biker club?”

“I borrowed what I needed when nobody else would give it to me. Then the debt grew, and when I could not keep up, they gave me another way to settle it.”

“You lost me anyway.”

His mouth tightens. “I did not lose you. I bought time.”

“You bought time with me.”

“Yes.”

There is no dressing it up, no excuse tucked behind the word. Just yes.

I laugh again because if I do not laugh, I am going to scream, and if I scream, the whole block is going to hear me. “Avery is your daughter. She is your blood. She has been back in that house for years, eating the food, using the heat, wearing things I paid for, and I am still the right ransom. Interesting.”

“They did not want Avery, Cora.”

“They wanted you,” he says, and the annoyance is back in his voice, as if I am being deliberately slow. “You were young. Clean. No record. You were the one they pointed at and said, That girl is the payment.”

“So I got picked because I was easy.”

“You got picked because you were valuable.”

I stare at him until my eyes burn. “Do not call me that.”

“It is the truth.”

“It is disgusting.”

He leans both hands against the counter. “You want me to cry with you right now? Will that change the number? Will it make the men who just pulled into my lot turn around and go home?”

My stomach drops.

I still have not turned around. I do not want to. If I turn around, it becomes real in a different way, and I am already at the edge of what I can hold.

“They are here?” I ask.

“I told you they would be.”

“You told them I would come here.”

That lands worse than the million.

I wipe my face with the side of my hand, and makeup comes away on my skin. I stare at the smear on my fingers for a second before looking back at him.

“I have helped you since I was ten. I took jobs at fifteen. I covered shifts in this shop when you had the flu for a week and Vivian would not even bring you soup.”

“I know, Cora.”

“Then why am I standing here listening to you tell me to pack a bag?”

He picks up the keys again and holds them out the same way he did two minutes ago, like nothing I have said has moved him an inch.

“Because knowing all of that does not change what I owe,” he says. “And because if you make this hard in front of them, they will not be as patient as I am being with you right now.”

I look at his mouth, then at the man who taught me how to check the oil, how to count back change, and how to lock the bay at night.

“I am not going with them,” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “You are.”

Behind me, I hear boots hit the concrete inside the door. More than one pair.

I keep my eyes on my father.

“If they wanted someone,” I whisper, “you should have given them Avery.”

His face contorts, sharp and ugly, and for the first time, he looks like he might actually reach across the counter.

I smile even though it hurts my face. “But I guess that is the difference. She is yours. I was just useful.”

“Cora.”

“A million dollars,” I say, and my voice shakes now no matter how hard I try to keep it flat. “You spent a million dollars I never saw, and the receipt is me."