by Shey Stahl
And I was there to hold her.
Sometimes you have to disengage from reality just do deal with the pain because the loss is that great. Eventually though, you realize that your family, your safety net and arm restraints are there for you, holding you together when you least expected it.
23. Jumping the Start – Sway
Jumping the Start – This is when a driver anticipates the start (green flag) too early. This will cause a complete restart. Continued violations will result in a penalty.
I never imagined that the day Jameson spent outside in the sprint car shop that he would have the inclination that his car had been tampered with. But Jameson is a lot smarter than most give him credit for.
The morning all hell broke loose was the night we were set to have our JAR Racing and Riley-Simplex Racing dinner. Alley had decided it was a good way to show our respect for everyone who stood behind us throughout the recovery. Jameson agreed.
Everything had been arranged and even Nancy got into the event planning of it. Honestly, it truly felt like our family was doing better. We were pulling together. Things were coming along and Jameson was recovering. He was in his final week of physical therapy and soon he would be taking his clearance exams with NASCAR.
So that morning, I stopped by the shop before heading to the banquet hall to help prepare. Easton was there, which wasn’t unusual because he was working with Jameson a lot and his sprint car team. Since the accident, he and Arie had been spending a lot of time together too since Arie and Lexi had been helping Alley so often.
Easton smiled when he saw me, his eye swollen and his lips bleeding with Arie standing next to him. The shop was a disaster. Tools, parts and boxes were scattered everywhere with a bat lying in the middle of the floor. The door to Jameson’s office was closed. The blinds have on the door, half not.
That’s when I knew that he either knew about Grady, or something else happened.
Arie shrugged and handed Easton an ice pack, he immediately placed it against his swollen eye.
I was almost afraid to go into the office but I did. He was in there, sitting in his office chair staring at the wall. In deep concentration, Jameson bit the corner of his bottom lip with his hands fumbling with a wrench. It was a strange familiar sight.
“How did you find out?”
“I’m not stupid.” He said slowly speaking the truth of a weight too big to carry. “I saw the car the day of his funeral.”
An unnerving quiet spread over the office, his callous eyes met mine. My throat hurt from constraining tears so often these days. “When did you find out?”
“Van told me a few nights before Jimi’s funeral.” I explained. “I told him not to say anything until afterward.”
He nodded his face expressionless but he eyes tell his story. “I’m not upset with you.”
“We didn’t mean to keep it from you.”
Again, he nodded. “I know.”
Willie came inside the office, well not actually. He stuck his head inside. “Hey man, uh...” he seemed to dance around what he wanted to say before Jameson interrupted.
“Get in here Willie.” He wasn’t asking, he was demanding.
“I uh...we...meant to tell you. I swear.”
“Don’t bullshit me right now Willie. Who is he?”
“Are you—?”
Jameson cut him off. “If you know what’s good for you, you will tell me the fucking truth right now.”
“He’s Darrin’s son.”
Jameson’s breath caught in his throat, his eyes immediately darkened and looked at me, the guilt still heavy and oppressing in his tone. “Did you know about this?”
I nodded. There was no sense in denying it now. Perhaps it was wrong of us but we had our reasoning.
“Tell Arie to come in here.”
Once the door opened, Willie shot out knowing he didn’t want any more of the verbal lashing. I motioned with a nod for Arie who was still standing near Easton. His head bent forward with his arms crossed over his chest never moving when Arie stepped way.
Arie entered the office closing the door behind her. “What happened between you and Easton?” Jameson asked her but keeping his eyes on the wrench in his hands, his body relaxed as he slouched in his chair.
“Nothing happened with me and Easton.”
“Then why was he fighting with Grady this morning?” Jameson looked at her as if he knew she was lying and that only pissed him off.
“Please don’t go crazy dad. If I tell you the truth, you have to keep calm.”
“Tell me.” He demanded dropping his gaze to the wrench again. I stood there trying to follow everything that happened this morning and, without a doubt, I was confused.
“I had been hanging out at the shop a lot trying to help the guys and get the merchandise trailers loaded. That’s when Grady started talking to me. We went out for lunch one afternoon and kind of got to be friends. I told him I wasn’t ready for dating or anything like that so we stayed talking but he said that he wanted more. So I stopped hanging out with him. Then one night, right before Thanksgiving, we went to a movie. Grady told me that if I didn’t...” tears streamed down her cheeks, she swallowed over her tears trying to hold back. I moved to comfort her. She let me for once and then quickly swiped the tears aside straightening her shoulders as if to say she wasn’t going to breakdown. “Grady told me he would do something to your car if I didn’t sleep with him. So I did. We uh...” Arie let out a frustrated sigh looking so much like her father in that moment. “Just like every other lying bastard I seem to get wrapped up in; he used me and did it anyway. So yeah,” her voice rose with each word. “I got more shit to deal. I once again gave myself to a sack of shit and he destroyed my family because he could. He knew all along that he could use me and he did.” Arie looked at Jameson, embarrassed. “That night before the race, I know you saw our interactions together and I’m sorry I lied to you. I just couldn’t take seeing the look on your face that you have right now.” Her voice lowered. “The look that says you’re once again disappointed in me.”
“It wasn’t up to you to take care of.” Jameson told Arie. She bowed her head as if she was completely ashamed of herself. “I don’t want you to ever get involved again. Understand?”
Arie nodded, nearing tears again, she began to walk away when Jameson called out to her. “I’m not finished Arie.”
I gasped at his tone, sharp like a razor but dull too. I had never heard him so angry with our kids. Fear of the outburst I saw coming pricked my skin and I wanted to comfort her and tell him to take it easy on her.
She stopped, weary, but didn’t turn around. Her hair fell over her shoulders blocking my view of her face. I looked at Jameson trying to tell him to stop and to take it easy on her but he looked right through me.
“Next time come to me before you go making deals with my employees. It’s not your place to get involved and I don’t want to hear about my daughter giving herself to men for the sake of my safety ever again. I mean it Arie, I better not hear of something like this again.”
Jameson’s eyes dropped to his desk and the door slammed behind Arie.
“What happened out there?” I asked moving to sit on his desk.
He wouldn’t look at me as he stood. “Take Arie home.”
“Jameson?” I tried to reach for him but he threw his hand up away from my grasp. “I will see you tonight. Please take Arie home.” He repeated.
I waited a few minutes inside the office noticing he must have thrown a few things with the broken glass from the picture frame he smashed. It was one of the JAR Racing crew, Grady included.
Taking a deep breath, I was determined to get through to him and get over this.
When you think about it, most of us, our intentions are usually pure. We want to do the right thing. Arie wanted to do the right thing. But still, we, as any human, push boundaries set between us and others to get what we want or to justify the bad we’ve done into the good we intended to do.
But, unfortunately there are these things called limits. And we were finding out the significances behind those now. Grabbing my mocha beside me, I pushed myself from the thoughts and made my way back into the shop.
“I don’t give a shit!” Jameson yelled over his shoulder before the door slammed shut. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about but it seemed the boys did. Spencer, Aiden, Tommy, Willie and even Casten, were here now, all gathered in the shop.
“That went super.” Tommy laughed from his place on the floor.
“Get up lazy!” I kicked his thigh. “You were absolutely no help with controlling him.”
Tommy rolled to his side and then got up. “Excuse me, but he shoved me today. No fucking way I was helping out with that argument.”
“Why did he leave?” I asked looking to any of them for an answer. Arie moved to stand next to me, ready to go I assumed.
“Apparently Grady is planning on confronting Jameson before the dinner.”
“Is he really that stupid?”
“Yes.” Arie said sarcastically and then looked at the floor. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
Willie and Tommy looked at each other curiously. I decided it was time to leave. I took Arie with me as we headed to the banquet hall.
“I’m sorry mom.” She said when we pulled into the parking lot. “It’s like I don’t think sometimes and go with an impulse.”
Shutting the truck off, I looked over at her tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Baby, please don’t fall into the trap of trying to fix things by having sex with boys. It doesn’t work. I tried and it got me nowhere.”
“Did you have sex before dad?”
“Yes, with a few people. My first time was in the back of a truck.” I admitted with a good amount of shame remembering the feeling that had knowing I had been used by Dylan and distinctly recalling the bruises I received too. “I know what you’re feeling.”
The biggest question was did I honestly know what she was feeling right now?
No. I didn’t. I didn’t because for one, she gave herself to a boy again and that boy tried to kill her dad. No one could understand what she was feeling any more than they could understand what Nancy was feeling or Jameson. Guilt, resentment, hatred, sadness were all justifiable emotions.
“Did you and dad...well,” her face flushed with pink, her eyes falling to her phone in her hands, “did you get together before?”
“Before marriage?”
“No, like in high school?” she clarified.
Was this appropriate? I thought to myself looking around for Alley. She usually helped me through these conversations with Arie since she had usually already had them with Lexi.
“Your dad and I were best friends when we were growing up and yes, we did do things when we were younger but we never had sex until we were twenty-three.”
“Did you always know that you wanted to be with him?”
What was this? I felt like I was back at Planned Parenthood being questioned when I went there to get condoms when I was seventeen.
“Now that I think about it, I was attracted to him from the very beginning. But with Jameson, he was so dedicated to racing that anything we had together was a distraction. After years of ignoring it, we finally gave in.” I laughed and motioned around the car to her. “Obviously.”
Arie thought for a moment and then smiled. “Easton asked me on a date.”
I couldn’t believe it. Even with everything going on between Jameson and Grady and all the shit surrounding this clusterfuck, my daughter was confiding in me. And to top it off, a good guy was interested in her.
I leaned over and kissed the side of her head. “He seems like a good kid sweetie.”
Emma was pounding on my window so our mother-daughter-moment was up. Rolling down the window just a smidge, I stuck the straw to my coffee out the window allowing Emma to take a drink. She did and we both laughed.
“Do you ever find your aunt annoying?” I asked Arie glaring at Emma through the glass. She stuck her tongue out but smiled.
“I find my entire family annoying at times.” My glare shifted to Arie. “But...I love you guys. I just don’t like you sometimes.”
“Wow, you are so much like your father it’s scary.”
“Come on,” Arie opened the door. “Let’s go put together a disaster.”
A disaster it would be if Grady showed up. Charges hadn’t been filed against Grady yet because we hadn’t done so. Phillip, our attorney, was working on it. Until then, Van and Clint kept a close eye on him. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stop him from showing up tonight.
The entire time we were setting everything up my mind wouldn’t settle, racing through everything that happened this morning with Arie and Jameson and the entire Grady situation. Jimi’s conversation rang through me, him not trusting Grady and not acting sooner led us here. The pain brought the prospect that once again, I was watching from a distance as my husband fell apart.
My other problem was that Arie had been involved. You try so hard to protect your children whether it’s breastfeeding or formula, what preschool to send them to, what kindergarten, and all the way up to when they’re teenagers and who their friends are.
Are those friends responsible?
Will they make good decision?
Will they be able to see their dreams come true?
So much of our lives are unpredictable and frightening. You don’t know what the next left turn will be or how you’re going to handle after the next caution flag. It’s a gamble.
After everything that happens, we want to show our family we love them, maybe hug them a little tighter when we learn of tragedy. My answer, always do that.
Always tell them you love them. Always make the best of it. Someday you won’t have the option.
No one crossed Jameson. And honestly, it wasn’t because of his temper but out of respect for him. In the sprint car world, NASCAR, and racing in general, he was highly respected. And the fact that he trusted Grady only to find out that he used Jameson was the lowest appreciation for respecting him.
I called Jameson several times. All my calls went to voicemail. I called Tommy, he hadn’t seen him. I called Willie, he hadn’t seen him and finally, I called Van and Clint. No one had seen him.
I was one worried Mama Wizard by the time the teams began to show up. We had family, the Cup team, nearly everyone from Riley-Simplex Racing both the road crew and the guys back at the shop. JAR Racing was here, even the guys that drove the trucks and who we rarely saw. Andrea made it over. It was the first time I had saw Macy, her and Van’s daughter, in about a year. Logan and Lucas came. Most everyone we knew was gathered for us to show them how much we appreciated them in our time of need.
Casten came inside with Nancy when I was greeting a few of the representatives of Solar Seals. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me away with a smile to where Spencer and Aiden were standing. “We have a problem.” Were his words to me followed by a grin and then an eye roll, “Shit’s about to hit the fan mama.”
“I think the shit hit the fan a long time ago.” I reached out and snatched a beer from someone’s table not carrying who had been drinking it. Following the boys outside, I downed that beer in all of two seconds.
Casten looked at me when I burped, amused. “Careful there, it’s still early.”
Outside, I had a feeling that Arie must have come clean to Easton because when Grady appeared in the shadows of the parking lot, Easton Levi was the first one in his face.
It made me proud that Easton felt the need to defend Arie and I think Jameson felt the same way as I saw him leaned against the side of the building, still in the shadows, dressed in his tux. For a moment, I was caught off guard with how beautiful and downright sexy he looked.
He had the mysterious edge by keeping his distance but you knew the fire inside was still there. Much like the photographs I loved so much, his head was bent forward, the growth of his hair, finally showing, blended in
with his jaw line. His hands were buried in his pockets with his cane beside him.
The boisterous surroundings caught my attention and drew me to the crowd around Grady.
Easton had the upper hand but I had a feeling that Grady also knew he deserved it and got what he had coming to him. Spencer and Aiden separated them quickly before anyone got in trouble but Easton was happy and kept trying to get at him. Apparently his licks he gave at the shop weren’t enough.
“You son of a bitch!” he screamed at Grady pointing his finger at him as he tried to basically climb over Spencer to get back at him. “She’s seventeen! Seventeen asshole!”
“That’s enough, Easton.” Jameson voice, calm but threatening, came from behind the crowd as he stepped from the darkness, his left hand remained in his pocket, his right dragging his cane. He stopped beside me, his lashes danced shadows over his cheek as he slowly blinked, his eyes remained focused on the ground as he handed me his cane. With a limp, he moved to stand beside Spencer.
Alley and Emma came outside to see why we left so quickly. “What’s going—” Alley came to a stop and looked at the boys. “Ah shit.”
“Pretty much,” was my response. “Where’s Nancy?”
“Inside, Axel and Lily are with her.” Emma said and then smiled. “I might add, she found the wine,”
Aiden grabbed Easton and flung him back against the building holding him in place. “Let Jameson take care of this.” He said to Easton. When he was confident Easton was calming down, he let go of him but stayed nearby.
In the meantime, Jameson was standing in front of Grady now for the first time.
Grady looked at his feet. He knew this was a fight he wasn’t going to win both verbally or physically.
“I’m sorry.” He confessed promising the sun where there’s only rain.
Alley snorted completely disgusted with Grady’s response. I was so pissed for what he did to Jameson and my daughter that I contemplated taking this cane in my hand and shoving it up his ass.