The Legend (42 page)

Clint
squinted at the cars and moved to the side of me, Van stepped closer. “Let’s go
someplace private.”

Van,
Clint, Tommy, Willie and me stepped into my dad’s office. I did nothing but
keep my eyes on Van knowing if I looked around and took in the memories of him
healthy and happy or looked at any picture with grandpa in it I would break
down again.

“It seems
Grady may have tampered with the car.” Van said looking at Tommy. “That roll
bar shouldn’t have been loose, should it?”

“No.”
Tommy said immediately, anger rising in his voice. “Even with the accident, it
shouldn’t have moved that much. There were partial welds done to the support
bars.”

Pushing
out the breath I was holding, I looked at Van again. “Who is he?”

Van closed
his eyes visibly bothered by what he was about to say. Clint spoke for him.
“His name is Grady Andrews
...
his
mother was Leslie Andrews out of Kannapolis, North Carolina but that shouldn’t
be your question. It doesn’t matter who he is.”

“Why?”
Willie asked standing near the door. His hand rested on the wall supporting his
weight as he leaned into the door. “Shouldn’t it matter who he is? He’s the one
that stole from Jameson, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he
stole around two hundred thousand dollars in parts and sold them back in
Kannapolis. But like I said, who Grady is isn’t important. It’s who his dad is.”

“Who?”
Tommy
asked.

Van’s
breathing increased and he moved shifting his weight. “His dad was Darrin
Torres. I’m not sure if anyone knew he had a son. I didn’t. He may not have even
known he had one either. His birth certificate doesn’t list his father’s name.”

“We
haven’t said anything to your mom and it’s best that we don’t right now.” Clint
said. “She has enough to worry about.”

“Is Darrin
...
alive?” Tommy asked.

“No.” Van
replied. “But we don’t know why Grady came to work here. I can only guess for
revenge.”

It didn’t
matter to me now whether Grady did or didn’t tamper with the cars. He was about
to have a bad day. I was sure of that. I was pissed. I was beyond pissed
thinking that this, all of this, happened because someone had tampered with the
roll cage and the fact that he was Darrin’s son and it went unnoticed by all of
us for so long fueled my anger.

Van stayed
with us but Clint left to return to Iowa.

With
Willie, Van and Tommy standing beside me, we approached Grady. One look at us
and he knew that we knew.

“How could
you?” I asked tears streaming down my face. I hated that I was crying over this
but this wound was still open and this was like pouring salt in it. “How could
you do this to him?”

“I’m
sorry.” Grady choked clearly bothered by his decision. “I never touched Jimi’s
car. I promise.”

“And you
thought that would make it all right?” I shouted a few feet from him. “Because
my dad is still alive
...
barely
...
and you thought you could live with yourself
because you didn’t kill him?”

“Did you
honestly think you could get away with it?” Willie asked him.

“I’m
sorry!” Grady held his hands up in surrender when I shoved him against the
wall. I didn’t intend on hitting him but when he said he was sorry again, I
wanted to make him feel sorry for what he had done and I hit him. Shocked his
eyes went wide but he never tried to defend himself.

“I’M
SORRY!” he shouted at me struggling to get away as if saying he was sorry would
calm me down.

“You tell
him that!” Tommy shot back grabbing him by his jacket and slamming him against
the wall of the shop. “You tell Jameson you’re sorry! Not us.” He shook his
head with heavy regret. “No, you don’t get to tell us. You get to tell him what
you did.”

“I can’t.”
Grady’s voice shook as he swiped the back of his hand over his lip glaring at
me. I had no regret for punching him other than the fact that my hand now hurt.
“He trusted me.”

Tommy
focused on Grady. It was the first time I had ever seen him angry. “You’re a
piece of shit you know that. He fucking trusted you. We tried to tell him but
he trusted you and you go and do something like this, fuck you! You get to tell
him. You get to tell him and watch what you’ve done. You get to tell him you
tried to kill him.” Tommy stepped closer. “And you’ll be lucky if he lets you
walk away.”

There
wasn’t any more to say to Grady. Our intent wasn’t to hurt him, though we
wanted to, but he needed to know that we weren’t letting this go.

“You might
want to stay in town Grady. And you should think about getting a lawyer. You’re
going need it.”

Grady’s
eyes widened but he nodded. I think he knew then the extent of what he did and
what this meant for him. I’m sure the documents he signed when he was employed
here were now making sense to him. Everyone signed a confidentiality agreement,
a non-disclosure agreement, more importantly, he signed a form that if anything
came up missing, and he was the one who stole, legal actions would be taken
against him. That should have been the least of his concern now. His concern
needed to be what my dad would do when he found out about this.

We knew
now wasn’t the time to bring this up to the rest of the family. For one I was
sure that my uncles would kill Grady if they knew the truth and we also didn’t
want to burden them with any more than they already had to deal with.

When Grady
left, Tommy and Willie stayed with me in dad’s office. Van escorted Grady out.

“How did
they not catch the partial welds in tech inspection?” Willie wondered.

“They know
us there and know we have good equipment. The thought probably never crossed
their mind to check under the wing for partial welds. Grady knew what he could
get away with.”

With one
problem solved, we headed back to Iowa to be with our family. No one had left
and I could understand why. Lily came with me. It seemed wrong to be excited
about life inside of my new bride but it was also a hope that we held onto. She
went to the doctor the morning we left to head back to the hospital and they
confirmed she was pregnant, eight weeks to be exact.

Back at
the hospital, I was relieved to see that my dad was improving.

“When do
you leave?” Spencer asked meeting us outside his room. We weren’t allowed in at
the moment but the room had all glass walls so it was easy to watch from the
outside.

“Tonight,”
I sighed watching my parents. “I have to be in Eldora for a test session and
then I leave the next day for Florida for the DIRTcar Nationals.”

Tommy brought
his coffee cup to his lips and then let out the breath he’d been holding. “It
feels wrong
...
doesn’t it?”

“It does.”
I agreed with him, watching my mom lay in bed with my dad.

It did
feel wrong but racing doesn’t wait or stop just because you’re injured. It does
make it harder to go on without them. The entire organization couldn’t just
stop because he was injured. Though it seemed like a good idea, respectful
even, that’s not what he would have wanted. My dad has spent the last
twenty-three years building his sprint car team to what it is today and now it
was up to us to keep it going. And we would.

It had
been a week since they took dad off the anesthesia. Some days he would open his
eyes, other days he would mumble words we could barely understand and then some
he just slept. There was no familiarity for him, or reasoning, he just came and
went as time passed. The scans showed no permanent damage and that he should be
fine. With all the broken bones, he would more than likely be out for the entire
season. It was times like this that you force yourself blind and only see what
you want. I saw what I wanted.
That with time, he’d be okay.

He was
awake. His head lulled to the side, squinting at pain I assumed or maybe
confusion. He seemed determined to focus. His lips pressed to her forehead, his
eyes closing, their hands locked together.

“Looks
like he remembers,” I chuckled softly resting my back against the wall.

“You don’t
forget a love like theirs.” Tommy replied turning his head when we saw that my
mom had started crying.

If felt
wrong watching such an intimate moment between them.

We left
them alone and to our surprise, dad stayed awake for a while.

When the
doctors came by, we followed them inside to see how he was doing.

I wasn’t
prepared for how he looked surrounded by monitors and tubes. It was evident
that though he was now being listed in stable condition, he was still in need
of machines to help him.

This
wasn’t the first time I’d seen him since the accident. But now
...
I saw the bruises covering his face, the
swollen purple and deep black around his eyes but I had yet to see his eyes
open
.

It wasn’t
my dad.

At least
it didn’t look like him. His eyes were cold and distant as if when he looked at
you, he was looking past you.

They were
blood red from being hemorrhaged. But under the blood was the familiar mystic
grass green.
Just different.
Maybe it was the
medication but he didn’t look like
my
dad. After being out of it for two
weeks I expected this but to this extent made me angry again thinking of why
this happened. I kept telling myself it was accident because it was but the
extent of his injuries could have been prevented.

Mom was so
happy that he was awake that she didn’t care how he looked. She saw the concern
for his appearance as well but after everything, she was just happy he was all
right. We all were. The desolation of grandpa dying was real, we felt it, but I
don’t think it had sunk in to everyone yet. We were holding out hope that at
least one of them would make it. Now that one had, we prayed even harder that
no complications came with it.

“His scans
all look good.” The doctor motioned to them. I kept my eyes on dad, he watched
carefully looking up at the screen above his bed that showed the scans; his
eyes still empty and distant.

“We will
continue to monitor the healing.”

“How long
will he be here for?” Tommy asked.

“It
depends how responsive he is to recovering. He will need to start physical
therapy when he’s ready and then we can give you a better idea.”

“You can’t
give us an estimate?” Mom asked.

“At least
two months.” He finally said. “His ribcage was almost completely crushed. It’s
going to hurt him just to breath let alone speak. Jameson has a long recovery
ahead of him. He needs specialized care and to be monitored carefully.”

“How long
will the confusion last?” I asked.

“It’s hard
to say. He took one heck of a knock. Then you add the coma, it’s
...
a waiting game. The CT scans show no signs of
brain damage so it’s hopeful he can make a full recovery from this. But it’s not
going to happen overnight. He’s going to be confused, there’s times when he’s
not going to remember and he may react to situations completely different than
he has before. With a traumatic brain injury to the temporal lobe, and with the
severity that Jameson received, his speech will be affected, memory loss can
happen and hearing changes. He might have difficulty recognizing people and
putting their name with their face for a while and sometimes patients show
increased aggressive behavior. We have to wait.”

“Great,
you mean his temper could be worse than before?” Mom asked.

Dr. Howe
laughed lightly. “You never know with these things.”

There was
no response from dad as he was now staring out the window watching the snow.

Mom
noticed. “Are you tired?”

He blinked
at the sound of her voice, as though she brought him out of the trance he was
in, and turned his head toward her. His body jerked at the onset of pain from
the movement and he grunted.

“I’m
sorry,” Mom’s eyes were wide with alarm. “I’ll get up.”

She tried
to get up but his hand rose to grasp hers. “D
...
on’t
,” fell
slowly from his lips.

Their eyes
met, the empty look swayed behind the cold eyes and I saw a glimpse of him in
there when he looked at her; just a glimpse.

“I’ll let
you rest man.” Tommy said to dad. “I’ll come see you after nationals.”

Dad
blinked and looked the direction of Tommy’s voice but other than that, didn’t
give a response.

Tommy left
after that and Casten came in. I had yet to come within dad’s eyesight, I
wasn’t sure what I would say to him or if he would ever recognize me?

Memory
loss was a concern but so far, he hadn’t said too much for us to test his
memory.