I had just stopped at a lonely Missouri gas station, grabbing a drink and lighting a smoke. My shirt was still greasy from work, the sky threatening rain, and my only plan was to get back on the road. Then I heard her voice.
“Nico? Is that you?”
I froze. Nobody called me that anymore—not for years. I turned and saw an elderly woman leaning on a cane, standing by a broken vending machine like she’d been waiting for me.
“Sorry… do I know you?” I asked.
She smiled softly. “I’ve been looking for you.”
She took my arm gently, and somehow, I didn’t pull away. We walked slowly, and I asked who she was.
“You look just like him.”
“Like who?” I pressed.
After a long pause, she whispered, “My first love. You’re the spitting image—Nico Petez.”
My heart stopped. That was my father’s name, a name I hadn’t spoken since he died in a motorcycle accident when I was thirteen.
“How do you know my dad?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “We met in Missouri, 1987. My car broke down. He picked me up and promised me the moon.”
It sounded exactly like him, though he’d never mentioned her.
“Were you… together?” I asked.
“Not exactly. Just a wild, beautiful week. He dreamed of California. I was running from my father’s farm.”
“What’s your name?”
“Call me Miss Carol.”
I remembered the name. “My grandma mentioned you once.”
“You’re Clara’s grandson?”
“Yeah. You knew her?”
“I always thought I was a secret.”
She asked me to drive her to her sister’s house. In the truck, she said quietly, “He promised to write. I never got anything.”
“He didn’t know about you. He married young.”
“I let it go. But I always wondered.”
She handed me a photo of her and my dad, laughing, young, free. “Keep it. That week meant something.”
Outside her sister’s house, she smiled. “Thank you, Nico. You helped me close a chapter.”
Days later, I got a letter.
“Nico — I never had a son with your father, but you’re the closest thing. Thank you for bringing me peace. — Miss Carol”
Inside was a check for $2,000.
A month later, a man delivered a storage unit from Carol, who had passed away. Inside: furniture, letters… and a 1968 Triumph Bonneville with a note:
“He said this was his dream bike. He gave it to me in ’87. He never came back. Now it’s yours. Take it somewhere beautiful.”
I ride often now, for the peace it brings. And I think of her. Of him.
Of the quiet threads that tie us together—waiting to be found.