Page 107 of The Legend
“I can’t.”Grady’s voice shook as he swiped the back of his hand over his lip glaring atme. I had no regret for punching him other than the fact that my hand now hurt.“He trusted me.”
Tommyfocused on Grady. It was the first time I had ever seen him angry. “You’re apiece of shit you know that. He fucking trusted you. We tried to tell him buthe trusted you and you go and do something like this, fuck you! You get to tellhim. You get to tell him and watch what you’ve done. You get to tell him youtried to kill him.” Tommy stepped closer. “And you’ll be lucky if he lets youwalk away.”
Therewasn’t any more to say to Grady. Our intent wasn’t to hurt him, though wewanted to, but he needed to know that we weren’t letting this go.
“You mightwant to stay in town Grady. And you should think about getting a lawyer. You’regoing need it.”
Grady’seyes widened but he nodded. I think he knew then the extent of what he did andwhat this meant for him. I’m sure the documents he signed when he was employedhere were now making sense to him. Everyone signed a confidentiality agreement,a non-disclosure agreement, more importantly, he signed a form that if anythingcame up missing, and he was the one who stole, legal actions would be takenagainst him. That should have been the least of his concern now. His concernneeded to be what my dad would do when he found out about this.
We knewnow wasn’t the time to bring this up to the rest of the family. For one I wassure that my uncles would kill Grady if they knew the truth and we also didn’twant to burden them with any more than they already had to deal with.
When Gradyleft, Tommy and Willie stayed with me in dad’s office. Van escorted Grady out.
“How didthey not catch the partial welds in tech inspection?” Willie wondered.
“They knowus there and know we have good equipment. The thought probably never crossedtheir mind to check under the wing for partial welds. Grady knew what he couldget away with.”
With oneproblem solved, we headed back to Iowa to be with our family. No one had leftand I could understand why. Lily came with me. It seemed wrong to be excitedabout life inside of my new bride but it was also a hope that we held onto. Shewent to the doctor the morning we left to head back to the hospital and theyconfirmed she was pregnant, eight weeks to be exact.
Back atthe hospital, I was relieved to see that my dad was improving.
“When doyou leave?” Spencer asked meeting us outside his room. We weren’t allowed in atthe moment but the room had all glass walls so it was easy to watch from theoutside.
“Tonight,”I sighed watching my parents. “I have to be in Eldora for a test session andthen I leave the next day for Florida for the DIRTcar Nationals.”
Tommy broughthis coffee cup to his lips and then let out the breath he’d been holding. “Itfeels wrong...doesn’t it?”
“It does.”I agreed with him, watching my mom lay in bed with my dad.
It didfeel wrong but racing doesn’t wait or stop just because you’re injured. It doesmake it harder to go on without them. The entire organization couldn’t juststop because he was injured. Though it seemed like a good idea, respectfuleven, that’s not what he would have wanted. My dad has spent the lasttwenty-three years building his sprint car team to what it is today and now itwas up to us to keep it going. And we would.
It hadbeen a week since they took dad off the anesthesia. Some days he would open hiseyes, other days he would mumble words we could barely understand and then somehe just slept. There was no familiarity for him, or reasoning, he just came andwent as time passed. The scans showed no permanent damage and that he should befine. With all the broken bones, he would more than likely be out for the entireseason. It was times like this that you force yourself blind and only see whatyou want. I saw what I wanted.That with time, he’d be okay.
He wasawake. His head lulled to the side, squinting at pain I assumed or maybeconfusion. He seemed determined to focus. His lips pressed to her forehead, hiseyes closing, their hands locked together.
“Lookslike he remembers,” I chuckled softly resting my back against the wall.
“You don’tforget a love like theirs.” Tommy replied turning his head when we saw that mymom had started crying.
If feltwrong watching such an intimate moment between them.
We leftthem alone and to our surprise, dad stayed awake for a while.
When thedoctors came by, we followed them inside to see how he was doing.
I wasn’tprepared for how he looked surrounded by monitors and tubes. It was evidentthat though he was now being listed in stable condition, he was still in needof machines to help him.
Thiswasn’t the first time I’d seen him since the accident. But now...I saw the bruises covering his face, theswollen purple and deep black around his eyes but I had yet to see his eyesopen.
It wasn’tmy dad.
At leastit didn’t look like him. His eyes were cold and distant as if when he looked atyou, he was looking past you.
They wereblood red from being hemorrhaged. But under the blood was the familiar mysticgrass green.Just different.Maybe it was themedication but he didn’t look likemydad. After being out of it for twoweeks I expected this but to this extent made me angry again thinking of whythis happened. I kept telling myself it was accident because it was but theextent of his injuries could have been prevented.
Mom was sohappy that he was awake that she didn’t care how he looked. She saw the concernfor his appearance as well but after everything, she was just happy he was allright. We all were. The desolation of grandpa dying was real, we felt it, but Idon’t think it had sunk in to everyone yet. We were holding out hope that atleast one of them would make it. Now that one had, we prayed even harder thatno complications came with it.
“His scansall look good.” The doctor motioned to them. I kept my eyes on dad, he watchedcarefully looking up at the screen above his bed that showed the scans; hiseyes still empty and distant.
