The bell over the front door trilled.
Zee walked in, hair in a scarf, jacket over a t-shirt with a tiny set of wings at the collar. She rides a Street Twin on weekends and files motions the rest of the week. She always smells faintly of paper and road.
“Special on Saturday,” she said. “Consultation includes sarcasm and forms in plain language.” She smiled at Maya like light over water. “Hey. I’m Zee. I help people write things down so systems listen.”
Maya looked at me for confirmation.
I gave the smallest nod I had. She nodded back.
“I’m not trying to make trouble,” Maya said to Zee. “I’m trying to keep a home.”
“That’s exactly what I do,” Zee said. “I help people keep homes.”
I finished the bleed, tightened the bolt, cleaned everything until it looked like a promise.
I reattached the mirror from my spares—different shape, sturdier stem. It would show truth and discourage grabbing hands.
I dug into the drawer for a new guardian bell, one I’d been saving.
It had a tiny hawk etched on it, a gift from an old Marine who said it kept his head clear through a fog he didn’t like to name.
I held it up. “These are good luck in exactly the way bridges are good luck: they keep you from falling into what separates you.”
Maya watched me install the bell like people watch their own names carved on something that will outlast weather.
While I wrenched, Zee asked her careful questions without ever crowding the answers.
Do you have screenshots?
Do you have call logs?
Would you be open to saving them somewhere safe?
Has anyone else witnessed his… supervision?
Do you want a protection order that says he must stay away and stop contacting? Officer Brooks can meet us at the station. We can ask for a quick hearing.
Maya’s answers were small yeses, quiet noes, the map of a person learning where stairs are in the dark.
At 3:56 her phone buzzed. The screen lit with a number labeled “Inspection.” She declined the call. It rang again immediately from “Private.” She set it face down.
“Breathe with me,” Zee said, matching her inhale, slow. “If we move, we move together.”
The radio drifted to an old hymn played on steel guitar.
My shop dog, Junebug, padded out of the office and curled by Maya’s boots, sighing the way animals sigh when they choose a person. Maya’s shoulders lowered half an inch. Sometimes that’s all the distance you need to think.
“Will he come here?” she asked.
“He might drive by,” I said. “Folks like that like to measure territory. But we’re boring on paper. I have permits. I file taxes on time. I keep my rock music at a volume that offends exactly no one.”
She smiled. It was quick, but it was real.
We left the Rebel on the lift and took my truck, Junebug in the back seat like she’d passed some test.
Zee coached from the passenger side. “We’re going to the station,” she said. “Officer Brooks will meet us at the desk.
We’ll file a report, not because paper saves people, but because paper forces certain doors open.
After that, Reverend Lorraine has a room if you and your mom need a quiet place tonight.
We won’t put anything online. We won’t post heroic selfies. We’ll do this like adults who know storms and keep tarps in the truck.”
We made it to the station at 4:18.
Officer Brooks was there, hair in a low bun, sleeves rolled to mid-forearm, the practical uniform of people who do the part of public service that still feels like service.
She greeted me with a chin lift, then turned her full attention to Maya.
Her voice fell a half-step softer.
She walked Maya through everything: what to write, where to initial, why the boxes mattered.
She didn’t make promises she couldn’t keep.
She offered the ones she could: “If a judge signs this today, he will be informed.
If he violates it, he will meet me. You don’t owe me bravery. You owe yourself safety. I can stand beside that.”
Maya wrote. Her hand shook once.
She took a breath and kept going.
She attached screenshots, voicemails, a photo of the flattened bell. Brooks called a judge. The world narrowed to the sound of a pen.
By 4:51, we had a temporary order. Paper. Words.
But the kind of words that carry a badge behind them. Brooks briefed us on next steps. Zee put the packet in a manila folder like you do when you want to remind a storm you live in a country with drawers and file systems.
We dropped Maya at Reverend Lorraine’s church, where the fellowship hall smelled like coffee and lemon cleaner.
The Reverend met us at the door with the smile of someone who has unlocked more doors than she has closed.
She had a spare key for a back bedroom and a tray of food.
Junebug pressed her head into Maya’s thigh one last time before we left. The dog has good instincts. So do pastors.
On the way back to the shop, my phone lit with notifications.
The town Facebook group had a new thread about “gangs of motorcycles intimidating decent citizens.”
There was a photo of my truck—my license plate circled in red, my sticker that says “Support Your Local Library” circled in thicker red like that was the real scandal.
The caption: What are they hiding?
I almost pulled the truck over.
Almost.
Zee reached over and turned the radio up a notch. “Knees,” she said. “Not knuckles.”
That’s biker for the discipline that keeps you from breaking your own future.
Back at the shop, we finished the Rebel.
I swapped the fluid in the front as insurance and adjusted the clutch.
The light cast an honest circle on the garage door. I rolled the bike down and listened to the idle. Even breathing. Ready.
“Delivery?” Zee said.
“Delivery,” I said.
We rode the Rebel and my old Road King to the church, slow and lawful, two blinks at every stop, no theatrics, just presence.
Reverend Lorraine waited on the steps.
Maya walked out in a clean sweatshirt and jeans that fit like clothes and not panic.
She ran a palm over the tank, touching the new guardian bell with her fingertip the way people touch a name on a monument.
I showed her how to test the lever. She squeezed. The lever pushed back like a promise kept.
“Can I pay you?” she asked again.
“You already did,” I said. “You told the truth.”
She put on her helmet, chin strap clicking with the neat finality of a decision. “You coming with me?” she asked.
