I Caught The Scariest Biker In Town Sobbing Behind My Store Every Thursday Until He Showed Me Why

“Because it’s quiet. Because there’s good WiFi from your store that reaches back here. Because Lily can’t see where I am on a video call—she just sees my face and the sky behind me.” His voice broke again. “She doesn’t know I’m homeless. She thinks daddy’s doing fine. She thinks I’m sitting on my porch back home like I used to. I can’t let her know the truth. She’s fighting so hard. She doesn’t need to worry about me too.”

He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “I come early and buy the tissues so nobody sees me crying. Then I wait until 9 PM, call my baby girl, and pretend everything’s okay while they pump chemicals into her body. I smile and tell her jokes and promise her daddy’s gonna visit soon. Then I hang up and I fall apart. Every Thursday. For eight months.”

I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to something like that?

“Her mom?” I finally asked.

“Died having her.” Frank’s voice was flat. “Complications during birth. It’s been just me and Lily since day one. I was twenty-six years old, suddenly a single dad with a newborn, and I had no idea what I was doing. But I figured it out. Learned to braid her hair from YouTube videos. Learned to cook her favorite foods. Learned to be everything she needed.”

He looked at the phone again. Lily was still on the screen, waiting. Still smiling despite everything.

“She was five when they diagnosed her. Five years old and they’re telling me my baby has cancer. I thought I’d die right there in that doctor’s office. But I couldn’t die. She needed me. So I fought.”

“I sold the house to pay for the first round of treatment. Moved us into an apartment. Sold my good bike—the one my dad left me—to pay for the second round. Then the apartment got too expensive without a house to leverage, so I moved us into a trailer. Sold that too when the bills kept coming.”

“By the time Lily needed to go to the specialized hospital in Pennsylvania, I had nothing left. But she needed to go. It was her only chance. So I put her on a plane with my sister, who lives out there now, and I stayed here to work. To keep sending money.”

“That was eight months ago. I haven’t seen my daughter in person in eight months.”

I felt tears burning in my own eyes. “Frank, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“Nobody does.” He almost smiled. “That’s the point. I’m the scary biker everyone avoids. Nobody asks how I’m doing. Nobody notices when I disappear behind the grocery store every Thursday. I’m invisible when I want to be.”

His phone buzzed. Lily was waving more insistently now, her small face filling the screen.

“I gotta take this,” Frank said. “She’s waiting.”

“Of course. I’ll go.”

I turned to leave, but something stopped me. I turned back. “Frank? What time does her chemo end?”

“Usually around 10

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