The bike was a 1948 Vincent Rapide, one of a few hundred ever built, and my father had bought it new. An appraiser had valued it at four hundred ten thousand dollars two years earlier, for the trust papers I had quietly drawn up. Mr. Lang knew exactly what it was worth. He had paid sixty-eight thousand dollars in cash to a woman with no title, hoping nobody would ask questions until the bike was sold overseas.

The police were already investigating his dealership for buying vehicles from spouses without checking ownership. They found my father’s Vincent in his trailer, still in its straps, within the hour. Mr. Lang tried to blame Patricia, saying she had assured him it was hers. She began to cry, and for the first time that day, she looked small and frightened. Janice and Russell slipped out the back door without a word.

When the officer returned the bike to the workshop that evening, Patricia asked what it was worth, and I told her. She sat down on an overturned bucket and covered her mouth. I said I was not angry about the money, which she had to return, but about thirty-eight years of laughing at the one thing my father left me. She admitted she had always felt jealous of it, as if it were a rival. I showed her the note he had tucked inside the toolbox, and she read it twice, crying.

We started counseling that month. She returned the sixty-eight thousand dollars to the police, and Mr. Lang pleaded guilty to dealing in stolen property. These days, Patricia brings me coffee every Sunday, and she polishes the chrome fender while I work on the gearbox. In the spring, we rode the Vincent along the Smoky Mountains, with her arms around my waist, laughing into the wind.