“That belongs to me,” she said sternly.
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“It was on my fridge! It’s out of my book.”
“My. My. My. I thought by fifth grade you’d learned how to share.”
And then she couldn’t help it. She was laughing. And he was laughing.
Kyle, giving them a disgusted look, gobbled down the leftover pizza. “Is there any dessert?” he asked.
“Kyle!” Ben said.
But she was glad to see the boy eating with such healthy appetite. Since she didn’t have dessert, she said, “Let’s not go right back to work. Let’s take the bicycles down to Friendly’s and have an ice cream.”
“How many bikes do you have?” Ben asked, looking adorably and transparently anxious to keep her away from that staircase to nowhere and her perch on the tree branch.
“About half a dozen. I pick up good bikes cheap at the police auctions. Then if there’s a kid at school who needs a bike, there’s one available.”
“You really have made those kids, school, your whole life, haven’t you?”
He said it softly. Not an indictment, but as if he saw her, too. “You have a big, big heart, Miss Maple.”
And he said that as if a big heart scared him.
“Ice cream,” she said, before he thought too hard about their differences.
Kyle made a funny sound in his throat. “I don’t want ice cream,” he said. “You guys go. Without me.”
“Without you?”
They said it together and with such astonishment that some defensiveness that had come into Kyle’s face evaporated.
“I don’t know how to ride a bike,” he said, and his voice was angry even while there was something in his face that was so fragile. “And you know what else? I don’t know how to swim, either. Or skate.
“You know what I do know how to do? I know how to stick a whole loaf of bread underneath my jacket and walk out of the supermarket without paying for it. I know they put out the new stuff at the thrift store on Tuesday. I know how to get on the bus without the driver seeing you, and how to make the world’s best hangover remedy.”
Suddenly Kyle was crying. “I’m eleven years old and I don’t know how to ride a bike.”
He said a terrible swear word before bike.
Beth stared at him in shocked silence. And then her gaze went to Ben. He looked terrified by the tears, but he quickly masked his reaction.
“Big deal,” Ben said, with the perfect touch of casualness. Somehow, he was beside his nephew, his strong arm around those thin shoulders. “Riding a bike is not rocket science. I bet I can teach you to ride a bike in ten minutes.”
Beth knew if she lived to be 103, she would never forget this moment, Ben’s strength and calm giving Kyle a chance to regain his composure.
Ben met her eyes over Kyle’s head, and she realized the whole thing was tipping over for her. The look in his eyes: formidable strength mixed with incredible tenderness shook something in her to the very core.
It wasn’t about living dangerously.
It was about falling in love. But wasn’t that the most dangerous thing of all?
“Ten minutes?” Kyle croaked.
“Give or take,” Ben said.
Of course he couldn’t teach Kyle to ride a bike in ten minutes.
“Are you in?” Ben asked her.
It wasn’t really about teaching Kyle to ride a bike. It was about so much more. Going deeper out into unknown waters. Going higher up the treacherous mountain.
It was about deciding if she was brave enough to weave her life through the threads of his.
What were her options? Her life before him seemed suddenly like a barren place, for all that she had convinced herself it was satisfying. It had been without that mysterious element that gave life zing.
“I’m in,” she said. And she meant it. She was in. Totally surrendering. She’d never been a marine, anyway. It was perfectly honorable for her to give in to whatever surprises life had in store for her, to be totally open to what happened next.
It was like riding a bike. There was no doing it halfheartedly. You had to commit. And even if you ended up with some scrapes and bruises, wasn’t it worth it? Wasn’t riding a bike, full force, flat-out, as fast as you could go, like flying? But you couldn’t get there without risk.
They selected a bike for Kyle from her garage and took it out on the pavement in front of the house. Soon they were racing along beside him, Ben on one side, she on the other, breathless, shouting instructions and encouragement. Just as in life, they had to let go for him to get it. Kyle wobbled. Kyle fell. Kyle flew. They were so engrossed in the wonder of what was unfolding that no one noticed when ten minutes became an hour.
“I think we’re ready for the inaugural ride,” Ben finally said. “Let’s go to Friendly’s for ice cream.”
“Really?” Kyle breathed.
“Really?” she asked. Friendly’s was too far for a novice rider. There would be traffic and hills. Try out those brand-new skills in the real world?
Maybe there was a parallel to how she felt about Ben. Try it out in the real world, away from the safety of her yard and her world? She remembered last time she’d been at Friendly’s with Ben, too.
He’d gotten up abruptly and left her sitting there, by herself, with a half-eaten ice cream cone!
It reminded her he was complex. That embracing a new world involved a great deal of risk and many unknown factors.
But again she looked at her choices. Go back to what her life had been a few short weeks ago? Where reading an excellent essay full of potential and promise had been the thing that excited her? Or where finishing a really tough crossword had filled her with a sense of satisfaction? Or where building a papier-mâché tree for her classroom had felt like all the fulfillment she would ever need?
Her life was never going to be the same, no matter what she did.
So she might as well do it.
“Let’s go,” she said.
They rode their three bikes down to Friendly’s Ice Cream. And then, after eating their ice cream cones, instead of riding back to her place, they took the bike trail along the river and watched Kyle’s confidence grow. He was shooting out further and further ahead of them now, shouting with exuberance when they came to hills, racing up the other side, leaving them in his dust.
“You go ahead,” Ben said to him. “You’re wearing me out. Me and Miss Maple are going to do the old people thing and lie under this tree until you get back.”
There were miles of bike trails here and they watched him go.
“Are you sure he’s ready?” she asked, watching Kyle set off.
“Yup.”
“How?”
“Look at him. Have you ever seen a kid more ready to fly?”
They sat there, under the tree, enjoying the sunshine and the silence, the lazy drift of the river. They talked of small things: the tree house, the wonder of Friendly’s ice cream, bicycles and kids.
Beth was aware of a growing comfort between them. An ease as relaxed as the drift of the river. But just like the river, how smooth it looked was deceiving. A current, unseen but strong, was what kept the water moving.
And