The Legend (38 page)

Was it
even real? Did you ever really have it? All the memories suddenly seemed so
distant.

Our family
wasn’t strangers to this. We knew death and we knew pain like we knew
ourselves. It still didn’t make it any easier,
not at all
. The pain was
still there, still real.

Thick and heavy,
it reminded us with each breath how real and crushing it could be.

I had no
idea what to say to her. On one hand, I was hurting too; Jimi was my dad for so
many years. On the other hand, I was hurting because my husband was in critical
condition and my mom, the mom I’ve known for the past thirty years, lost her
husband.

“I’m going
to find the boys,” Emma choked out a sob but remained collected and reached for
Arie beside her. I think she needed a few minutes alone but I was relieved to
see that Arie went with her.

No one
wanted to break down in front of Nancy in fear she would break.

She looked
up at Emma, her eyes glazed over but she didn’t say anything and no tears fell.

There was
absolutely nothing I could say and she knew that. Instead, we held each other.
She never did cry, instead, stared at the wall waiting on any word on Jameson’s
condition.

I asked
nearly everything five minutes if she needed anything but she never verbally
responded, only shook her head as I response.

I tried
racking my brain, wanting to find some sort of consoling advice I could offer
her. But I couldn’t. Because if Jameson died, nothing would make that better
and if someone tried to comfort me, it would only piss me off. Nothing would
make this better. No magic phrase would make you feel better and frankly,
nothing needed to be said.

Jimi died
in a manner befitting to the champion he was, in the place he loved with his
son and grandson. That’s what I told myself. Now would I say that if Jameson
didn’t make it?

I doubt
it, but I had to hang onto something. I doubted I would be able to comprehend
anything, just as Nancy was, if Jameson didn’t make it.

If
Jameson died, I doubted I could hold it
together in the way Nancy was. She was strong.

I couldn’t
think of any place I’d rather be than with my mom in that moment. Of course
there was that strong urgency pulsing through me to break down the doors of the
ICU to see Jameson but they wouldn’t let us in regardless.

About an
hour after the doctor had told us Nancy looked over at me, weighted and somber.
It was the first words spoken. “Can we see Jameson now?”

“I
...
uh
...
not sure,” I reached for her hand. “But let’s go see.”

As we made
our way out of the room, everyone we saw looked at us with pity and I wanted to
scream and then punch them in the face. We walked to where the rest of our
family had gathered in the hallway outside of the intensive care units, waiting
to hear how Jameson was.

Most of
our family and Jameson’s sprint car teams was waiting outside the doors. Justin
and Tommy were pacing back and forth. Casten, Axel and Arie were huddled
together comforting one another as they always did and that made me want to
cry.

Charlie
and Noah were here now sitting across from my kids with Aiden and Emma. Lane,
Cole and Lexi were sitting beside Spencer and Alley with Logan. While Spencer
stared straight ahead, no emotion was visible. Alley was quite the opposite as
she tended to her cell phone.

Being
Jameson’s publicist, everyone wanted to know his condition.

“Why
haven’t they come out and talked to us yet?” I asked Justin but he only
shrugged his eyes on his feet.

It was
close to another hour before Nancy was asked to step away with the doctors.
This time Emma went with her and I stayed with my kids, holding them.

Doctor’s passed,
nurses asked if we needed anything but no one had answers. Just that he was now
in surgery.

Right
about the time I was ready to explode, another doctor came out in scrubs. I
thought for sure he would tell me the same devastating news he told Nancy but
he asked me to come with him. So, the kids and I followed him back to an
intensive care room. The door to the room was closed as were the white blinds
that hung over the glass window.

“Mrs.
Riley, I’m Dr. Howe, head of neurology.” He reached out and shook my hand.
“Jameson is in critical condition and we are keeping him an induced coma right
now.” The doctor gave us a look of more pity. My heart was pounding and it was
hard to pay attention to anything he was saying. “When he arrived, he wasn’t
breathing. We ventilated him and got him sedated. Keeping him sedated is the
only way for his brain to heal properly,” but didn’t say anything. “When he
arrived he was unconscious. We were able to get a few responses from him but
his speech was slurred which alerted us to the severity of his head injury.” He
looked down at his notes. “He’s got an almost completely crushed rib cage, a
punctured lung and spleen. His pelvis is fractured, broken collarbone, and a
cracked scapula. The head injury is our main concern and required immediate
surgery. He’s got a lateral skull fracture.”

I had to
use Casten and Axel to keep from swaying. My boys wrapped their arms around me,
each of us providing a comfort only family could provide. My throat constricted
and I felt the rush of emotion as the tears rose to the surface.

“After
repairing the fracture and controlling the bleeding, I needed to relieve the
pressure in his brain so I inserted a catheter to control the inter-cranial
pressure. There’s also a device inserted to monitor the pressure and tell us
exactly when it’s increasing. This seems to be helping but we have to wait a
few days to see exactly how much damage has been done. After surgery he began
experiencing seizures so I’ve given him some anti-seizure medication and that
seems to be working. Although he’s had a few more, this is mostly from the
trauma.” He then flipped the chart over. “His friend
...
Justin West?” he looked for confirmation he
had the name correct. We nodded so he continued. “Justin indicated his helmet
was cracked. Can I see it?”

“Oh,” I
looked around for Justin but didn’t see him and then I had no idea where anyone
was.

It was
just me, Casten and Axel. I thought Arie was with us but she somehow
disappeared without me knowing.

“I haven’t
...
” I intended on replying but instead began to
sob into Axel’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

My only
thoughts seemed to be that I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t. I wanted to keep it
together but I knew I was breaking apart inside.

Gaining
focus, I tried to comprehend what he was saying but I couldn’t. Axel held me
tighter sensing the breaking point.

“Can I see
him?” I asked.

“No, I’m
sorry.” He seemed genuinely sorry. “No visitors are allowed inside the room.”

“Is he in
there?” I motioned behind him hopeful for a glimpse. “Can I just peek through
the blinds? I just want to see him.”

“No.” he
said remorsefully. “He’s not on this floor. He’s in the
Neuro
-ICU
where he can get one-on-one care with us.” The doctor paused again, his brows
furrowed in concentration as he read a report. “He is also suffering from
toxicity.”

“Toxicity from what?”
I asked.

“Methanol,”
he answered. “Regardless of how it enters your body, in this case, it was being
poured on his when he was upside down in the wreck. The problem is the CNS
depressant properties in it can make it fatal.”

I gasped.
Not only does he have a life threatening head injury but methanol could kill
him too?

My god.

“It can be
treated with antidotes of ethanol or
fomepizole
. Both
drugs act to reduce the action of alcohol dehydrogenase on methanol in his
blood by means of competitive inhibitors so it’s excreted by the kidneys rather
than being transformed into toxic metabolites.”

He was
speaking Greek. Complete fucking Greek.

“What does
that mean?” Casten asked.

It was the
first time I’d heard Casten speak since we arrived. I looked over at him as
though I didn’t even know who he was. His rusty loops that matched Jameson’s
matted from sleep and he was still wearing pajamas and that kind of made me
want to laugh because they were footy pajamas.

“It means
we could smell the methanol when he arrived and caught it before the
accumulation of toxic levels could formulate in the blood and cause death from
respiratory failure.”

Once
again, he looked at his notes. “Now he’s a professional race car driver,
correct?”

“Yes, he’s
a NASCAR Cup driver.”

He frowned
shaking his head. “He won’t be racing for a while. That head injury alone will
set him back at least six months if not longer and that’s if there’s no damage
to his brain other than swelling.”

“He isn’t
going to be happy with this.” Casten teased softly. He was only trying to make
light of the situation which is what we all needed at that point. Axel finally
noticed his pajamas and gave him a funny look only to have Casten roll his eyes
and point to the doctor mouthing “Pay attention,” to him.

Dr. Howe
frowned and looked over at Casten next to me. “I know it may be touch and go
for a while but Jameson just needs to be thankful he’s even alive right now.
Some weren’t so lucky.” The doctor shot back at him.

“My dad
will feel this more than anyone in our family right now, I guarantee you that!”
Casten snapped back at him, tears spilled over his red cheeks. It was very rare
for Casten to get angry and even rarer for him to cry. I understood right then
how real this was. “Don’t act like you know how
we
feel or how
he
will feel.”

Casten was
absolutely right.

When
detonation occurs, not only is the result fatal to the life of the engine but
the pistons, the driving force of the engine are destroyed.

Not just
burned, there was nothing left, only fragments of metal remained. That was us
right now, fragments of metal trying to focus on the detonation that occurred.

What drove
Jameson all these years was Jimi. He may think it was me. But Jimi taught him
everything he knew, in turn, he wanted to make him proud, just like Axel did
with Jameson. Jimi was his hero. His legend
and now he was gone.

We made
our way back to the waiting room when Justin was sitting outside. I sat beside
him as the boys and Arie went back to the waiting room with the rest of our
family.

“Do you
have his helmet?”

Justin
didn’t answer right away but stared straight ahead before the sound of someone
opening a door snapped him out of his trance. He blinked slowly, agonizing
dread seeping from every movement, and looked over at me, his eyes tired and
confused.

“Yeah
...
it’s over there.” He said flatly pointing at
a bag of Jameson’s gear they took off him in the ER and at the track.

Opening
the bag, I peaked at the helmet covered in dirt and blood. It was cracked down
the entire left side. Inside the bag were not only the helmet, but his racing
suit, gloves and neck restraints. All of it covered in blood and clay. My stomach
turned, this was my husband’s blood. I swallowed trying to hold back the rise
in my throat. Removing the black racing gloves I bought him for Christmas, I
held them to my chest and collapsed beside Justin.

“Oh my
god,” I gasped covering my mouth, tears surfaced again. My mind replayed the
crash and what Axel must have saw. I pictured him lying there, in pain,
struggling to understand.

“The wing
broke apart,” Justin’s voice remained distant as he stared at the wall, “there
was nothing keeping his head from hitting the wall when he landed on it.”

“What
about the roll bars?”

“I don’t
know. It doesn’t make any sense how it happened. With the way it landed on the
side, I can only assume they did nothing for him. But then again, he shouldn’t
have been able to move that much for that to happen. It was the roll bars then
...
?” Justin didn’t look at me but he seemed to
be asking a question and confused.

There were
a few moments of silence before Justin looked at me again. “Did you hear we’re
going to be grandparents?”

I groaned.
I didn’t like that word. “Don’t remind me. I already feel old.”

I may
harbor ill feelings about getting old, but that had nothing to do with Lily
having a baby. I was excited for them but it was hard to show excitement about
new life when something so tragic had just happened.

Its times
like this that you look at your life and wonder what you could have done
differently. The fact of the matter was that people die. It happens and there’s
nothing you, or anybody else, can do about it.

Sometimes
the red flag is waved.