Clutch In, Engine On, Give Throttle, Fly.

It was a sizzling June afternoon, and my ass was glued to the cool metal support of the waiting room chair. Despite the pain of the metal beams digging into my flesh as I squirmed in my seat, the cold was soothing. Not much had changed about this place over the decade, especially not the god- awful chairs. Considering our healthcare system’s unimaginably drawn out wait times, one would think all of us taxpayers would willingly unite to fund more comfortable chairs.

I glanced around at the other dozen people in the waiting room with me and gasped as I caught sight of an older gentleman whose resemblance to my late father was uncanny. He had a healthy amount of salt and pepper waves caressing his head and was seated with impeccable posture for someone who had probably been here for at least five or six hours. He donned burgundy leather and medium-length sturdy black boots. I noticed he had tucked a pair of armoured gloves in his front pants’ pocket and my eyes widened with familiarity and mild astonishment. He must have been a rider like my father. It was always surprising to me to notice that once you were immersed in a certain world, your daily life is coloured differently. You notice the men and women who carry helmets close to their bodies as one would a little puppy, you notice the tough leather more often, your curiosity around which kinds of bikes are parked outside the supermarket increases.

I had only been seventeen years old when my father passed away. He had been hit by a stroke, cause unknown. Most people who knew us assumed it was the bike that killed him. The truth is the bike is what kept him alive all those years. It was the one thing we could both talk about. I never got the chance to ride a motorcycle with him, but we did used to take the bicycles out for a spin. Clutch in. Engine on. Give throttle. Fly. He used to say that when he was teaching me how to ride a bicycle, even though most of it didn’t apply. I smiled at the memory of him finally letting the saddle go and me pedalling as hard as I could up the modest slope to our house. It had felt like flying, to feel the warm breeze on my skin, to be in control of where I was going. There was an adrenaline rush to the whole experience.

I snapped out of my reverie when a nurse came by to ask how I was doing. She must’ve known I’d been waiting anxiously for hours. Some of these nurses really do care, I thought to myself. Her question had brought me back to why I was sitting in the sterile-smelling waiting room surrounded by sanitized off-white walls. My seven year-old had fallen off his bicycle when he lost control going down a steep hill that he had underestimated while I was out at the park with him. While that had been going on, my husband had been out enjoying his own grown-up bike. When he’d do that, I would often not hear from him for hours. Initially it had been anxiety-inducing, but I’d learned over the years to let things go. Not everything could be controlled. It was an awful thing, really, to love so deeply. There was always a fear whispering at my ear, almost eerily, that I would lose it.

Perhaps that’s why I never wanted to have a child. The thought of it was mortifying. A whole little human, that you had to care for, and even though it grows up and becomes self-sufficient, you never really stop worrying about it. It’s a little late for family planning, I thought, as I clutched my husband’s hand (I’d forgotten that he was next to me) so hard we both began to sweat. I let out a small sigh and loosened my grip as I became aware that I was probably hurting my love. He stroked my thumb knowingly and whispered, “It’s going to be fine, it was nothing serious.”

We were at Toronto General Hospital, waiting to hear back about our little black-haired toddler, Damian, who had fallen off his bicycle in the park trying to catch up to some older kids. He was a thrill-seeker, just like his father. I glanced over at his dark blue motorcycle helmet placed meticulously on the chair next to us, and then up at James. He was already looking at me with his chocolate brown eyes and that tired half-smile of his. I leaned against his deep brown leather-clad shoulder and inhaled the sandalwood and cedar scented cologne I had bought for his birthday recently. I felt so at ease around him, and so safe. For someone so full of adrenaline when it came to riding his motorcycle, he gave off such a peaceful aura, you wouldn’t think he had sped over to the hospital all the way from Collingwood on his bike with little mind for anything else. Well, he did abide by traffic rules, thankfully. If he had been the kind of reckless boy I used to date when I was younger, I wasn’t sure if we’d be together today. I used to tell him that any time I felt like he wasn’t being careful enough. Yet the truth is, I was so madly in love with him that it was a little too late for new deal-breakers. When I first came across his profile online, I was so incredibly turned on by the fact that he was a rider. Maybe it’s the classic daddy-issues coded personality of mine that loved the danger of it all, I snickered to myself. There’s just something about knowing there was only one person in the entire world that I could trust enough to get on the back of that “motorized death machine” (that’s what my mother called it) and actually enjoy it so much that I’d go out with him.

“You okay, kiddo?” his deep yet soft-spoken voice penetrated my reminiscing. He sometimes called me “kiddo” because of our age gap. To be clear, he was just two years older than me but liked to think he was some old sage from a different generation. Sometimes, I felt like he was. A generation that believed in working things out even when things were tough. Maybe that’s why when I found out I was going to have his baby, I decided to go through with it. I had been having a full-blown panic attack on the toilet when it happened. I still remember asking him to grab two pregnancy tests from the drug store on his way home in the heat of the summer. He was surprisingly calm on the phone and had just said, Everything’s going to be fine, kiddo. Whatever you decide, I love you and we’re in this together. I had broken down bawling my eyes out on the toilet because I knew he wasn’t going to leave me even if I couldn’t go through with it. I had still been sitting in the bathroom with my head in my hands wondering what the hell to do when I heard the engine of his bright orange KTM 500 supermoto rev up the driveway. A few seconds later, he was caressing my face in his hands, which meant that he hadn’t even bothered to enter through the garage despite his fears that someone would steal it.

I looked up at him from the edge of the bathtub with wet, crimson eyes and whispered, “You didn’t park the bike.”

He let out a loud chuckle and some tears left his eyes, “Fuck the bike, my love. You. Are. My. Life.”

The way he had said it with such certainty, and the way his eyes spoke such volumes that words could never capture everything in his heart, I knew that if it was positive, I wanted to keep him. He was a little boy, I could feel it. He would have the tired, kind eyes my love had, even when he was upset. Maybe he would ride motorcycles…

“Hey,” James whispered as he nudged me softly, “The doctor’s here.”

I looked up worriedly but when I saw that the doctor was smiling, my heart fluttered back up to its rightful place in my chest. Everything was fine, and Damian hadn’t even suffered a concussion. There was just some minor bruising. I let out a massive sigh of relief. Everything in fact, was going to be okay.

It was a cool Autumn evening, and I’d decided to stay in cooking Shepherd’s pie for when James got home from what he had decided would be his “last ride of the season”. It never really was, so I didn’t take it seriously when he boldly announced that his gear was going into storage when he got home. Damian was out at my friend’s place having a playdate and sleepover, so that we could get some time to ourselves. It took me a few months after his hospital visit to let him out of my sight because it had been so frightening. At that age, they are so fragile. Everything comes full circle – you’re born fragile, you age to the same point of fragility. It was all quite depressing, really. Perhaps it was the dark-lit kitchen or growing winds outside getting to me. My thoughts never fared well when it got colder.

Suddenly, my phone rang from the kitchen counter blasting Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz. That was our song, especially when we’d go out on the bike together. I hurriedly picked up, as it was unusual to hear from James when he was out on the road.

“Hi, love – is everything okay?” I asked, a wave of panic starting to hit me. I could feel my body drain itself of all colour when he responded that he’d lost control of his motorcycle because of something unexpected on the road and that he needed me to pick him up.

I rushed to the scene as soon as he sent me his location and saw him on the side of the road, close to our house, with the side of his pants thoroughly ripped and his quad soaked with blood. I had no idea how I was going to get him in the car, so I called 9-1-1 and stayed by his side, tears streaming down my face.

“Thank God you’re alive,” I cried, holding him against my chest until the ambulance pulled up. We lived very close to the hospital; I just hadn’t expected I’d be visiting it again so soon.

Hours later, I was sitting in the same waiting room chair I had been squirming in a few months ago. They had told me that everything was going to be fine, and that it was a matter of a minor surgery. Still, I couldn’t help but feel despair creep into my heart. I hadn’t slept for hours, and I started to feel myself slipping into a mix of insanity, rage, and sadness when I was hit with the memory of the last time I’d seen my father. He would’ve told me to snap out of it - that if everything was fine, what was the point in worrying? I inhaled for four seconds, held my breath for eight, and exhaled for four. I repeated the exercise five times and felt my heart rate slow down. The heaviness lifted off my chest. The nurse signalled to me that James was absolutely fine and resting. I could breathe again. I put my hand against my chest and felt my heartbeat go from slamming against my chest cavity to pumping more quietly, like light percussion. I shut my eyes and let myself relive my last conversation with my father.

“You can’t be scared, you know sweetheart,” my father had whispered that when he was hooked up to various machines at the hospital and it was just the two of us.

“You can’t be scared to love, you can’t be scared to fly,” he’d continued, struggling to speak as the stroke had severely impaired his speech. I’d continued to listen because I wanted to hear what he was trying to tell me.

He’d placed his hand on top of mine. It had felt as light as a feather, almost hollow.

“So whenever you feel that fear creeping in, just know that it’s the start…” he’d trailed off, catching his breath, “It’s the start of an incredible ride.”

I smiled at the memory as it made its way from my head to my heart and I felt the warm saltwater begin to escape my eyes.

“Clutch in.” I’d started to say, choking on my words as I realized that it would be the last time we spoke.

“Engine on.” My father had looked right through my soul and smiled.

“Give throttle,” at this point, I’d been on the verge of bawling.

He’d squeezed my hand with all the strength he had left, and whispered, “Fly.”