Blown Motor – This would be a major engine failure, like a connecting rod going through the engine block. Blown motors usually produce a lot of smoke and steam.
“Thanks for everything you guys have done,” I wailed against Nancy’s shoulder, as she and Jimi both hugged me tighter. “I’ve always felt like you two were my second set of parents.”
Jimi, Nancy, and Emma had taken care of everything for us with the funeral. I could hardly function let alone plan a funeral.
If it weren’t for Jameson and Axel, I’d probably still be curled up on the floor by the phone.
Had you ever heard that saying, “Everything happens for a reason?”
What a crock of bullshit that was.
Shitty things happened to good people all the time—Charlie, my mom, Van. And good things happened to shitty people—Darrin.
What seemed to cross my mind the most was how was I supposed to feel about this? Was I acting the way I should? If not, how was I supposed to react?
The man I looked up to my entire life, who raised me on his own, was dead. As in gone... forever... never coming back. I would never see him at the track again. I would never walk downstairs from my room to see him engrossed in the Sunday paper and eating Coco Puffs or a maple bar donut with chocolate milk.
I glanced out the small window next to me and watched everyone who passed on the street below, going about their daily lives.
Did you ever wonder what they were thinking? How their lives were going?
I did.
I wondered if they faced the same day-to-day shit that everyone else had to. Did some people have it easier? From up here, from a perspective, everything looked fine as if nothing in their life was shitty.
But from what I’d learned, people displayed their emotions differently, and generally, something about their lives was shitty in some way. They were just hiding it well.
When I was in college, I read a book by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross called On Death and Dying. Elisabeth described the five stages you went through when dealing with grief and tragedy.
There was denial. Trying to imagine it was not true. We didn’t want to think it was true. Who really wanted to face reality anyway? Clearly not me.
We got angry with everyone. We were angry with people who’d never experienced the pain and angry with ourselves for having to deal with it.
Then we begged and pleaded, offering up anything we had to not feel the pain, or just have one more day, one more moment.
When that didn’t work and anger wasn’t worth it, we got depressed until we accepted that we’d done everything we could have done. We let go. But how did you get to that point and go on living? How did you accept the change and become the person you once were?
My anger was what hit me first. It started slow and hung on tight, steady, never letting go.
I couldn’t sit still, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and couldn’t focus on anything but the wave of rage that had taken over.
When the anger finally let go a little, the pain hit.
I wanted to cry, but tears seemed too small, too inconsequential for the void I now had.
I wanted to forget, but forgetting my parents would be like forgetting myself. I didn’t want to forget anything. I simply wanted to remember.
I struggled to my feet and made my way across the attic, shoving years of memories into boxes and trying to ignore the fact that I felt like this was over. My childhood, my memories of them were trapped inside those boxes.
Moving methodically, removing anything and everything that reminded me of them until there was nothing left. I wanted to run, to scream, to destroy, but I knew that wouldn’t help anything. I wanted anything but to feel the pain I felt without them here.
It didn’t feel like I just lost Charlie. It felt like I lost my mom all over again once I was in the attic surrounded by her memories.
It’d been years since I’d been up here, and when I was, it was usually during a game of hide-n-seek. I was hardly up here to snoop through boxes then, as hiding was imperative. To say I was serious when playing hide-n-seek was an understatement. I once punched my little friend, Leslie, in the face when she gave my secret location away. Talk about hard-core.
I reached for a photo that was lying to my left. It was of Charlie and me when he first bought Grays Harbor Raceway—I was six. We were standing by the ticket booth, and he was holding the title in his hand. I was on his shoulders, smiling. We looked so happy, so carefree, but the funny thing was that we were.
Did I have regret?
Yes. I wished I had more time with them. My mother was twenty-five when she died and Charlie was forty-two.
How was that fair?
I only wished I had more time with them. I wanted, hell, I had no idea what I wanted. I wanted to say it was enough to whomever it was that was deciding how much I was dealt. I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle.
I’d been up here all morning going through old boxes, remembering, avoiding everyone downstairs. Andrea was cooking with Nancy. Spencer, Aiden, Van, and Jameson were doing God knows what with Lane and the twins, and Alley and Emma were... actually, I had no clue what they were doing besides annoying me.
The next person who asked how I was would probably get punched.
It seemed everyone downstairs didn’t know that if they were in the kitchen, I could hear them through the vents. When I was younger, this worked in my favor on many occasions to know when my dad was coming upstairs. I always had just enough time to hide any discriminating evidence.
Aiden and Spencer were arguing about something, but I couldn’t decipher what.
I laughed when I heard Spencer grumble, “Excuse me while I find my balls. I’ve misplaced them somewhere.”
“Get used to it, dude,” Aiden said. “Your wife is having a little girl in four months.”
I shuffled through the box of Rachel’s belongings that had been left up here and noticed an envelope marked with my name. I’d never seen it before, and it remained unopened.
Once I opened it, I’d wished I hadn’t.
Again, I was crying abnormally, only now it was amplified by my post-pregnancy emotions and the loss of my father. Shit-storm was the only word I could think of to put those few moments into perspective for you.
The thing with grief was that it looked different on everyone.
Watching everyone once I made my way downstairs, I observed how grief looked on them and wondering if that was how I should be acting. Was I responding in the ways Elisabeth Kubler-Ross described I would?
Andrea was standing in the kitchen, baking with Nancy and Alley. When you thought about it, it wasn’t only death you were grieving. It was life and the changing of your life that you were grieving.
Our lives would forever be changed by one moment.
I wanted to know why it hurt so bad. Why good things always follow with bad. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around this.
I also thought that was how you stayed alive. When it hurts so much you couldn’t breathe, that was how you survived. That was how you moved on from that numbing feeling. By remembering that, someday, somehow, you wouldn’t feel that way. It wouldn’t always hurt this much, and eventually, you’d find solace.
When I walked into the living room later that morning, I found Jameson in Charlie’s old chair with Axel, intently watching the NASCAR race.
I smiled, knowing he missed the race for me.
He seemed fine with it, or maybe he was feeling the same as me. Charlie was a father figure to him as well. His expression was blank as he stared at the television like he didn’t have any more room for thoughts.
Noticing how everyone around me was acting, I also knew that grief came in its own time for everyone and in its own way.
Don’t be surprised if you didn’t feel the pain right away. It’d come eventually. Believe me.
The best you could do, the best anyone could do, was to be honest with yourself and don’t deny how you feel. Just feel something, anything, because feeling was the first step toward healing.
I couldn’t find the twins, but I had an idea as to where they were.
When I opened the door to Charlie’s closet, I found them, crying in the corner and holding each other.
So far, since I’d met them, I’d never once felt bad for them... until now.
They may be the Lucifer twins, but they were still only six years old and had just lost their father, the only father they knew. It brought me back to when my mom died, and I was sitting in her closet during the funeral, alone.
Nobody was there to comfort me, but here they had each other... and they had me.
The really shitty thing, the very worst part of the grief that consumed you, was that you couldn’t control it. The best you could do was just let yourself feel it when it came and let it go when it passed.
I sat down with the boys, pulling them into my arms.
“S-w-w-way ...” Logan cried against my shoulder. “P-P-P-Pleassseee not leaveeee u-u-sss,” he hiccupped and cried louder.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “Who else would annoy me the way you two do?”
“We... miss him,” Lucas cried, throwing his arms around me.
For me, I thought the worst part about feeling this way was the moment I felt among the living again, it started all over again. And every time—every goddamn time—it took my breath away and completely crippled me.
“Can we come live with you?” Logan asked after a few minutes, still crying with an extreme amount of snot coming out of his nose. His arm rose to wipe the snot on the sleeve of his black jacket.
I’d admit they looked adorable in their little suits.
“No,” I told him, in the nicest voice I could. “I’m afraid I’d murder one of you... but I love you guys. So ...” brushing his chocolate hair out of his eyes, he looked up at me. “I think it’s best if you stay with your mom, here in this house. And, for Christ’s sake, have her cut your hair.”
Lucas looked over at me, ignoring my comment about his hair as he, too, pushed his out of his eyes. “We don’t have to move?”
“No... this is your house to stay in.”
I stayed in the closet with Logan and Lucas for close to two hours before Jameson came looking for us.
We were in our second game of Go-Fish by the time he found us.
I watched the twins make their way downstairs, thinking of the way grief had looked on them and realizing that even though everyone looked different, and acted, there were still five stages regardless of the appearance.
When the denial slowly moved to anger, we usually wanted to bargain for more time, more of anything. Then came that blinding depression.
But then, just when you think you couldn’t take much more, you finally reached acceptance. You could try to avoid it as I usually did, but the reality was, sooner or later you had to accept they were not coming back.
Whether it was anger, depression, denial, or blame, none of that would bring them back.
I sat there watching the race on TV with Axel—Justin was racing for me. It sucked missing the race, but there was nowhere else I’d rather be than with my family.
Axel whimpered in my arms, snuggling closer to me after I fed him his bottle. Poor Sway was in no condition to be breastfeeding today. It was comforting to me that just so much as taking care of our son today was helping her through all this.
The announcers on TBS caught my attention when they began speaking as to why I wasn’t at the race. It started by them talking with Justin as he stood on the grid next to Bobby before the race.
“Now Justin, you raced for Jameson back in late July last year after his wreck in Pocono... how do you feel being in these full-sized cars again.”
“I’m wondering where the wing is?” Justin teased, glancing over the car like he was inspecting it. “Oh.” He pointed at the spoiler. “That must be it.”
Bruce, the announcer, laughed. “Yeah, that must be it. Can you handle this beast?”
Justin laughed again.
“You tell me,” he pointed at the tree in the infield of Rockingham where it read number nine as the number one starting position.
“Fair enough.” Bruce nodded. “Well, good luck today without the wing. Do you think you can pull off a win here for the Riley family?”
“I hope that we can.” Justin nodded with a smile. “It would be great to win here today for that team. They deserve that much.”
The broadcasting station then cut back to the regular tower announcers where they talked about Charlie and what happened.
Leaning back in the chair, I placed Axel against my shoulder to burp him, hoping he didn’t puke on me. I couldn’t handle the puke on me—it was repulsive.
“That family has had its fair share of turmoil in the last year,” Rocky said, a former Cup driver who was now broadcasting the races for TBS. “Here you have Jameson, involved in that wreck in Pocono last July and in a constant battle with the former driver of the number fourteen Wyle Product Chevy.” I found it entertaining that even the news reporting stations wouldn’t say his name these days. “Then his wife was involved in a horrific accident in the grandstands in Loudon in September of that same year. Having just given birth to their first son, this was not the kind of heartache the family needed,” Rocky explained.
I hated that they were discussing this on national television, but it was what it was. It came with the territory. Everyone wanted to know why I wasn’t racing this weekend, and for the fans who supported me every week, they deserved to at least understand why.
“Jimi Riley, owner of Riley Simplex Racing released this statement Wednesday morning: “We appreciate all your support during our family’s time of need. Jameson will not be racing this weekend in Rockingham. Justin West, driver of the JAR Racing number nine Simplex/Power Plus Outlaw sprint car, will fill in for the Rockingham race. Jameson will be back in the car for the Las Vegas race.”
“With everything this family has been through you only wish that they can get a break from all this heartache at some point,” Rocky said, looking to Larry, the other announcer in the booth.
“We haven’t talked a lot about this family in the past, but on both sides, Jameson and Sway’s families come from a long line of racing blood,” Larry said conversationally. “You’ve got the Riley side where Jameson’s grandfather, Casten Riley, who built, from the ground up, one the largest sprint car and stock car engine manufacturers in the Midwest—CST Engines out of Bloomington, Indiana. Jimi, Casten’s son, followed in his footsteps into the Outlaw series and then came Jameson who has made NASCAR history in just one season. Now you look at the Reins’ family and Charlie’s dad, Luke Reins, who raced sprint cars around the Northwest until he passed away from diabetes in his late forties. In the spring of 1987, soon after the passing of his wife, Charlie bought Grays Harbor Raceway, which happened to be the first track his dad ever raced. Now Jameson owns the track and his wife, Sway, is heavily involved in the day-to-day operations. Racing is a huge part of their family and always will be.”
Rocky spoke up again as I moved Axel back to my lap where he sprawled out, stretching after his meal. “You know we haven’t talked a lot about this over the years, but we lost Ron Walker last year in Williams Grove, and now the racing community loses another great track promoter, Charlie Reins. When he took over ownership of Grays Harbor, he was quickly drawing in the track sponsors and cars flocked to the shady side.”
They went on to talk a great deal about track promoters and how the racing world wouldn’t be what it was without these guys selling the sales the way they did.
Ryder showed up after that. I thought he’d be in Ocala, so when he walked in wearing a tie, I choked on my beer.
“What are you doing here?”
Ryder smiled down at Axel. “Nice to see you, too.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t good to see you, man... just caught me off guard.” He leaned forward and patted my back before removing the blanket over Axel to get a good look at him.
“Sid is driving for me tonight,” he said, sitting next to me. “I leave in the morning, but I wanted to stop by.”
I knew why he came. Racing, in a sense, was all about who you knew. We got introduced to car owners that way, sponsors... that was how the sport operated.
Look at what happened to me at the Chili Bowl when I was introduced to Tate.
Ryder knew Charlie from back in the days when he started racing quarter midgets in the late eighties. At the time, Grays Harbor was one of the fastest tracks around, and everyone wanted to race there. It wasn’t uncommon for the kids from the east to venture out to Grays Harbor.
So every year Ryder came out at least a few times and got to know Charlie. Charlie then introduced Ryder to Sid Donco who owned Donco Controls.
Donco Controls had been sponsoring Ryder in the USAC divisions since he was fourteen years old. Right there goes to show you it paid to treat everyone with respect in this industry. You never knew when you could be working for them at some point.
Ryder and I made small talk for a few moments before I focused on the television again as they started the pre-race activities. Ryder laughed when he saw Justin. “He looks awkward.”
“He’s looking for the wing.”
“I bet he is,” Ryder laughed.
Spencer walked into the family room, where we were sitting, holding Lane by the ankles. They sat down in the chair next to Axel and me.
Lane looked over at me as the race began.
“Can I hold him?” his expression was anxious.
It was hard on the kids. I was sure they had no idea why all the grown-ups were crying.
“He just ate,” I told him. “Are you sure?”
Lane seemed to contemplate this for a moment before nodding. “I want to.”
Spencer helped him, and soon Axel was sound asleep in Lane’s arms. I decided it was time to stretch my legs for a moment and then find Sway. I left her in the attic this morning, knowing she needed some time alone. I wasn’t really sure what to say to her. She was only twenty-three and both her parents were now gone—nothing I said would be comforting.
When I walked toward the front porch, I heard my name mentioned from a group of women talking amongst themselves. I recognized the one as Mallory and the other looked to be Jen, our new media relations staff member for Grays Harbor.
“How’s Jameson holding up?” Jen asked Emma who approached them.
Emma smiled as she always did. “He’d never let on, but I know he’s hurting inside.”
“He can’t stand to see Sway in pain,” Mallory added.
I leaned against the wall when I saw Sway sitting on the porch staring at the driveway and listened to the conversations surrounding me.
Everyone asked the same thing: “How’s Sway?” followed directly by, “How’s Jameson?”
Why did people care how I was? I wondered, but just hearing those brief conversations, I understood. I understood because I wasn’t okay. Just like my wife, I was hurting. I’d known Charlie even longer than I’d known Sway.
People filed in and out of their home, paying their respects. It made me sick to my stomach any time I thought how he was actually gone. I kept thinking he’d come down the hall any minute and yell at Logan for something... but he wasn’t. It seemed the hardest part about all of this was acceptance.
No one liked change, and permanent change was even worse.
Jameson stepped onto the porch, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his dark trousers. He leaned against the railing, the sleeves of his gray dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. I watched his slow steady breathing when leisurely he lifted his hand to run it through his hair—his head slumped forward, staring at the ground.
I had snuck out here when everyone started talking about Charlie firing the staff from the track. I was really going to miss the crazy bastard. Nothing would be the same around the track anymore or at home. I already felt difference being here in this house without him. It felt empty, lifeless, but maybe that was just me.
“What are you doing out here?” Jameson eventually asked.
“Watching Mrs. Taylor’s cat lick his balls,” I replied.
Chuckling, he took a seat next to me on the worn wooden steps, bumping my shoulder.
“There’s a funeral going on in there.”
“Is that so?” I laughed bitterly, watching Mrs. Taylor’s cat walk away, flicking his tail with each step. “I couldn’t tell with all the black. I thought I was at a Johnny Cash concert.”
We sat there and joked for a few moments before I decided it was time to give my speech. I turned to Jameson once we were inside.
“Jameson, I’m warning you... you leave me alone with Mrs. Taylor for more than five minutes and I’ll chop your dick off.”
Mrs. Taylor was our crazy neighbor who annoyed the fuck out of me, worse than the Lucifer twins did if that told you anything. When I was nine, she paid me twenty bucks to get her mail for a week and deliver it to her. She talked so goddamn much I quit after two days.
“That’s a little harsh, and you really should stop threatening my manhood if you want more children, but... I wouldn’t think of it.” He slapped my ass once as we walked toward the backyard where everyone was gathered.
I had no idea what to say during my speech so I reached for the note in my pocket that I found from my mom, feeling the warm tears streaming down my cheeks. I looked over at Jameson who was standing near the fence off to my right—tears glazed his eyes as he held our son close.
He mouthed, “I love you,” to me and winked once.
I inhaled a deep breath before I began. “I... don’t really know what to say.” I paused, feeling everyone’s eyes focus on me. “But I found a note from my mother this morning that really summed everything up for me.” Pausing again, I gave Jameson a small smile. “She told me to not look back. She told me that all of this I’m feeling right now, the pain, the anger, the depression, is what I’m supposed to feel, and it’s natural. It’s normal. She said that everything that happens to you is the pages within the story, and it’s your novel. Write the ending you want. She said that what would really define me was when I thought I couldn’t go on. How I went on would be my destiny.” I finally looked up to find Jameson smiling at me. “I don’t know what to say about Charlie except that he did the best he could for me. I never once felt like he didn’t love me, nor did I ever feel like I let him down. He supported me in everything I did, and that’s exactly the way a father should be.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I was drawing a blank until I looked over at Axel once again. “Charlie’s only wish was to see me walk down the aisle and see his only grandson born, both of which he was able to do. He lived a full life, and he had no regrets. Neither should we. He knew we loved him, and that’s all that matters. That’s all we can ask is that we tell the ones we love how much we love them and appreciate them for who they are.”
I couldn’t say any more because at that point, staring at my son, I lost it again and walked away to hide in the closet again.
This time Jameson followed, concerned for his manhood.
So there we sat, Jameson and me in Charlie’s closet.
“Where’s Axel?” I finally asked after ruining his black dress shirt with snot and tears.
“He’s with Andrea,” he told me. “I think she needed him to cheer her up.”
“He does that for people, doesn’t he?”
Jameson leaned over, kissing the top of my head. “Yeah, he does.”
“We should probably go back downstairs, huh?”
“Nah... we can stay up here as long as you need to.”
We were quiet for another few moments before I began to pour my heart out to him.
“You know, I thought that if I avoided it, pretended it wasn’t happening, that I could bandage the pain once it hit, but that’s not the case. It hurts.”
“I know, honey,” he pulled me to his chest. “I’m sorry I can’t take away the pain.”
Jameson and I had been through so much since we’d known each other, and I had no doubt this was just another obstacle that would increase our bond with one another.
In some relationships, what happened with Darrin would have destroyed a couple, but not us. If anything, Darrin showed me just how much I loved Jameson and how strong we were together.
“When do you need to leave for Las Vegas?”
“I need to be there next Wednesday... so I have ten days.” He smiled with a slow wink. “Can you think of anything I can do in ten days?”
“Oh,” I sighed dramatically. “I can think of a lot of things.”
“Honeymoon?”
“Honeymoon,” I agreed.
Time alone was exactly what we needed.
With acceptance came moving on and living the life you’d been given. You owed it to the ones you’d lost to go and do what they no longer got a chance to—remember them in a way that brought you both happiness.
Charlie would have wanted me to continue to be a mother and a wife, and that was what I was going to do. My book was still being written. I may have some torn pages, maybe even dog-eared, but it was one hell of a story.