Running Wide Open (27 page)

I dug into my food, pointedly ignoring Race as he concentrated on the pan of pasta. With great effort, he managed to get some onto his plate. The vegetables were another story.

“You have a mean streak in you,” he told Kasey as peas rolled over the tabletop.

“I’m sorry. I should have thought.”

“I’ll say,” I agreed, “peas shouldn’t even be considered food.” I’d been avoiding them, but Kasey put an end to that by lowering a spoonful onto my plate.

“Didn’t you ever give this boy vegetables?”

Race gave Kasey an innocent look. “What’re vegetables?”

“You know, dude,” I said, “those green and red things that come on your side of the pizza.”

“Oh, yeah. I never mess with those. I prefer the one-pan method of cooking.”

Kasey shook her head, but her expression melted from exasperation into amusement.

“Y’know, I’ve been thinking,” Race said. “Maybe we could run down to my shop some night this week and have a look at the Dart.”

Kasey’s smile faded. “I’m awfully busy. I still haven’t found a mechanic, and evenings are the only time I have to catch up on paperwork.”

“So how long do you think it’ll take to fix?” Race asked.

“I have no idea.” Kasey turned her attention toward me as I skeptically examined my milk. “Cody, if you’re thirsty take mine. That noodle won’t bother me.” She leaned across the table to swap glasses.

“I know you’re busy,” Race persisted, “but I’d like to know what I’m up against. Maybe I could give Denny a call and have him run me by the shop.”

“Can we talk about this another time?” Kasey asked. “I’m exhausted.”

Race studied her, torn between hurt and understanding. As an expert in the fine art of manipulation, I had to hand it to Kasey. She sure knew how to disarm him.

* * *

I was shocked to find Race up when I entered the kitchen the next morning at six-thirty. Judging by how tired he looked, I figured he’d had trouble sleeping. That was something I could relate to. It had been several days since I’d woken in the darkness to the image of the Dart flipping through the air, but it had happened again last night.

“Are you taking Cody to the shop today?” Race asked, poking at his Cheerios. Milk sloshed out of the bowl and puddled on the tabletop.

“No,” Kasey said. “I think for these first few days he should stay here and keep you company.”

“I don’t need company. The shop’s more important. I feel bad enough already that you got behind because of me.”

Kasey looked up from the morning edition of the
Register Guard
. Or the
Register Disregard,
as Race called it, since they tended to neglect printing the speedway results. “That’s not your fault,” she said. “You didn’t tell Harley to quit.”

“Yeah, but I was the one who gave you a reason to spend a good part of the last two weeks at the hospital.”

“That was my decision.”

“Take Cody with you,” Race insisted. “He likes the work and you need the help.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to spend too much time alone.”

Race shoved away from the table, spilling more milk. “Damn it, Kasey, I don’t need a babysitter.”

Carefully, Kasey folded the paper and got up to take her bowl to the sink. “He’s staying here today,” she said.

It was awfully considerate of them to ask for my input on that plan.

* * *

“C’mon kid,” Race said later that morning. “We’re going for a walk. I’m not gonna get my stamina back by sitting here watching TV.”

“Is that a Kasey-approved activity?” I asked, averting my eyes from the book I was reading.

“Do I look like I care?”

Race kept a firm grip on the handrail as we descended the fourteen stairs. Straggling down the driveway, he grumbled about the heat. Just the night before, he’d been freezing and Kasey’d had to turn off the AC.

“Dude, it’s only, like, seventy-five degrees. Your thermostat’s messed up.”

“Along with everything else.”

I had to reduce my pace to grandma-speed so Race could keep up. I entertained myself by practicing some karate kicks at mailboxes.

“I haven’t seen you with a cigarette once in the past two days,” Race said. “How goes the battle?”

“Pretty good. It’s a struggle sometimes, but I haven’t had a smoke since Sunday.”

Race grinned. “Good work.”

We got about three houses down the street before he had to sit down to rest on a huge boulder at the end of someone’s driveway.

“I’m so out of shape.”

“Well, no shit. Try looking on the bright side. You’re alive, you can walk around, and you don’t get dizzy when you stand up anymore.”

“You’re such an inspiration.” Race heaved himself up off the rock. He only made it another half a block before giving in and turning back.

That little bit of exertion wiped Race out so much he retreated to his room, granting me a few hours of uninterrupted peace while he slept. When he returned to the living room he wore a pinched, pale look that meant he was struggling with another headache. He dropped into the chair by the door and stared at the blank TV, tapping his foot in boredom.

“It’s more interesting if you turn it on,” I said.

“I’ve had enough daytime television to last me the rest of my life.”

“Well, read a book, then. Kasey’s got tons of ’em down in the basement.” The whole north wall of her rec room was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A lot of her collection consisted of college textbooks and big tomes about engineering, but she also owned quite a bit of fiction. Enough to keep me busy for the rest of the summer.

“Not that I have anything against it, but I never really got into reading,” Race said.

“Maybe you should try it. It doesn’t take any strength and it’s a really good way to kill time.”

When Race continued to sit there, I laid my book face down on the coffee table and got up. “C’mon,” I said. “I’ll help you find something interesting.”

Race sighed and followed me downstairs.

“Here we go,” I said, pulling a book from the shelves after surveying the fiction. “You’ll like this. It’s mystery, but it’s got a lot of humor.” I handed him the first of Robert B. Parker’s novels about a private detective named Spenser. Kasey had the entire series, fifteen books so far, and I figured it would keep Race busy for a while.

Leaving him alone with the
The Godwulf Manuscript
, I went back upstairs. I briefly wondered how he was gonna manage to turn the pages, but decided not to risk annoying him by bringing it up. He must’ve figured it out because I didn’t see him again until a quarter to six.

“That Spenser character’s a real smartass,” Race said when he emerged from the basement.

“Takes one to know one,” I observed.

“We need to make dinner,” Race said. “Kasey shouldn’t have to work all day and then come home and cook for us.”

“Have at it. I don’t want her giving me crap for pawing through her cupboards.”

Race disappeared into the kitchen. The banging and clatter he made distracted me, but it wasn’t until I heard the sound of breaking glass that I figured I’d better help. The phone rang before I made it halfway across the living room. I detoured to grab it.

“Cody? Hi, it’s Mom.”

“Sorry, wrong number.” I hung up and proceeded to the kitchen, where Race was picking the broken pieces of a Ragu jar out of an enormous puddle of spaghetti sauce. It was amazing how much square footage a quart of pureed tomatoes could cover.

“Who was on the phone?”

“No one. Here, let me do that. You’re gonna cut yourself.”

Race tossed the bigger shards of glass into the garbage can. “You have no idea how annoying it is when you and Kasey won’t let me do things for myself.” He grabbed for a paper towel and the entire roll pulled free of its holder, bouncing off the counter and spiraling across the floor through the spaghetti sauce.

The phone rang again. Wearily, Race tracked through the puddle on the floor to get to the wall-mounted one by the refrigerator. As he picked it up, I realized Mom was probably calling back. I wondered which would be worse, talking to her myself or letting him do it.

“Why, hello, Saundra!” Race’s voice was a sing-song of false cheerfulness. “Oh, he did, did he? So that was you just now.” Race glanced at me and I froze. “Yep, I’m still alive and kicking. Sorry to disappoint you.” He leaned back against the counter, lifting one foot to examine the pungent red goo covering the bottom of his sneaker. “Well, judging by the limited nature of your conversation a minute ago, I’d have to conclude that he’s not interested in talking to you. To tell you the truth, I’m not interested in talking to you, myself.”

Relieved at Race’s intercession, I sat down.

“If that’s how you feel, maybe you need to talk to Mom about it,” Race continued. “She and I have an understanding.” There was a long pause, during which Race motioned for me to slide a chair over so he could sit. “Yeah, yeah, I know he’s your kid, but he’s old enough to make his own decisions.”

The rumble of a big engine sounded in the driveway.

“Oh, shit!” I scrambled out of my seat and snatched the roll of paper towels. Race barked an abrupt goodbye and hung up, joining me in trying to mop up the mess.

The floor was still a big red smear when Kasey walked into the kitchen. Worse, I noticed that tomato sauce spotted the cupboards, walls and refrigerator to about knee level. Kasey said nothing, just faded into a chair, her face creased with exhaustion.

“I’m sorry,” Race said. “I didn’t think you should have to come home from work and cook. We’ll clean it up.”

Kasey gazed wide-eyed at the mess.

“Look, you guys,” I said. “Why don’t you go watch TV or something? I’ll take care of this.”

“Kid, it’s not your—”

“Just go.” I motioned toward the living room. “And don’t track that stuff on the carpet.”

Race gripped the counter for balance as he kicked off his shoes, then he followed Kasey into the other room. When I heard the low tones of the evening news I got to work.

I guess on some level I’d been thinking that when Race came home everything would be all right. Now I knew it wasn’t gonna be that simple.

Chapter 26

After the Ragu disaster, I took over the cooking and cleaning duties. Race insisted on helping. Figuring he needed something to occupy his time, I let him, but I didn’t allow him anywhere near a jar of spaghetti sauce.

While Kasey put up with our interference, I could tell giving up that control bothered her. Her house, once spotless, took on a more laid-back appearance under our blundering care. Every night I saw a battle going on in her eyes as she noticed a crappy vacuuming job or a few crumbs on the counter.

“Let it go,” I said. “You’re stressing Race out, trying to do everything yourself.”

I figured things would get better with time, but they didn’t. Not even when Kasey loosened the reins enough to let me go back to work in the afternoons. She was making several trips a day, between running me back and forth and taking Race to Sacred Heart three times a week for outpatient therapy.

“It’s not an inconvenience,” she insisted. But Race harrumphed that he knew damn well it was. Still, when Grandma offered to take him, he refused.

“I wouldn’t want to pull her away from her busy volunteer schedule,” he said, making me realize that some grudges could over-ride even his deep-seated sense of honor.

“She’s your mother, Race. She wants to help,” said Kasey.

“All she wants is for people to see that she’s doing her duty. If she really cared she’d start accepting me for who I am.”

Unlike Race, I was getting used to having Grandma in my life. She was overly proper and domineering, but the one thing I had to appreciate about her was how she’d come to respect Kasey. She didn’t understand her, but she respected her. Unfortunately, Grandma also agreed with her when it came to the Dart. Kasey claimed she didn’t have time to work on it, and Race, overwhelmed by his indebtedness to her, didn’t argue.

I was disappointed in Kasey. I understood how the idea of Race returning to competition freaked her out, but it wasn’t right for her to cope by using his guilt against him.

Kasey and Grandma’s meddling was only part of the problem. Things also weren’t going well with Race’s recuperation. He couldn’t concentrate, his memory was crap, and fatigue leveled him if he pushed too hard. Along with constant headaches, he had trouble sleeping. It wasn’t unusual to find him passed out on the couch in the early morning hours with the TV on. After two weeks, he still had trouble operating the remote and dialing the phone. And while he pretended to prefer the comfort of sweats over jeans, we all knew he just couldn’t manage a zipper.

Reading was the only thing that seemed to help. “Now I understand why you’ve always got your nose in a book,” he told me. “It’s kind of a relief to live somebody else’s life for awhile.”

I agreed, but I knew my need to escape had been nothing compared to his. I thought about his artwork, how sketching for him had always been as natural as reading for me. How brutal was it to lose that? Race never mentioned it, and Kasey and I were careful to avoid the subject.

“He’ll deal with that when he’s ready,” Kasey said.

The saddest thing was that Race just wasn’t himself anymore. All traces of his former optimism were gone. His easy-going, devil-may-care wisecracking had disappeared, leaving nothing but sullenness and irritability. It was like he was turning into the old me. Kasey pointed out that moodiness was a common symptom of a traumatic brain injury. The thought didn’t reassure me. Instead, it brought back the fear that some essential part of Race’s character had been permanently erased.

I tried not to let Race’s crankiness get to me, reminding myself of my vow not to disappoint him again. Karate was the one thing that helped with that. After neglecting to practice the whole time Race was in the hospital, I’d worked it back into my schedule. Every day after breakfast I’d go out to the flagstone patio behind Kasey’s house, where the dappled sunlight filtered through the trees, spotting the rock with glimmers of pale gold. There was something refreshing about cool morning air, the birds chattering in the trees that covered the hillside. I could see now what my sensei was saying about developing the mind and spirit at the same time as the body. Repeating the simple moves while I concentrated on my breathing always calmed me. I thought it might work for Race, too, but he was rarely up at that time.