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Chapter Fifty-Two

Darien

S he leaves as abruptly as she’d entered my life.

I don’t want to explain any of it to the guys when I get back, get ready to leave for Rio with Miguel. He’s bursting with excitement, since we’ll be reuniting with Henri and Peter to spend the lull in races together vacationing in Brazil, after which he’ll drop by Spain to see his family, and then it’s full circle, with the season picking back up in S?o Paulo – third to last race. He has so much – so many people – to look forward to. Yeah, I’m glad I’ll get some time with M?e, get to catch up and kick back, but I don’t know how I can kick back right now.

‘Shantal already left?’ says Miguel with a yawn as we swing ourselves into the limo that will take us to the airport. ‘That early in the morning? God knows the girl can’t wake up before ten a.m. and expect to function.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. Easy, ambiguous. I don’t want him to have been right when he told me not to find out what was bothering Shantal after the last race, but he is. Part of me wishes I’d never asked. I grab a bag of those dumb peanuts, popping one in my mouth. The memory of Shantal’s grumble when I’d hit her with one on the way to the airport in Rio comes on, harsh and unsolicited.

‘Yeah, she’s left?’

‘Yes, she left, Miguel!’ I shoot back with a bit too much force. ‘She left, okay? She’s gone .’

Miguel, normally one to engage in a fight if you pick one with him, doesn’t say anything, just lets this new bit of information process. He opens his mouth as if to say something, and then closes it before finally deciding what to say. ‘Why?’

‘It’s a really long story.’ I swallow hard, leaning back against the limo seat. ‘And it’s not mine to tell.’

‘She’s all right, though, isn’t she? Nothing bad happened to her?’ Miguel runs a hand through his hair nervously. ‘Dude, if something—’

‘Nothing happened.’ My voice threatens to give out as I hold in torrents of truth that yell at me to let them loose. ‘We’d better just leave well enough alone.’

‘What?’ He’s almost gone slack-jawed with surprise now. ‘Since when do you not push back?’

The breath I let out is heavier than I intend. ‘Since it’ll be her who decides if she’ll push back or not.’

I spend the days we have in Brazil in a haze. Miguel, Peter, Henri and I are off to Belo Horizonte. I should be taking in all the sights, including the Mineir?o, the stadium where we once hosted a World Cup, one of my favourite parts of the country, if anyone were to ask me, but I see her everywhere.

I see her in the pairs of cleats that are displayed in the museum, in the Italian sodas we snag off a street vendor, in the Hokas on the feet of tourists.

Part of me wishes I could be more upset at her for making that decision so easily, for leaving so quickly; maybe that would make it easier to find somewhere to put my emotions. But I can’t. I know exactly what it feels like to have to keep moving forward because if you don’t, you could lose someone you hold dear, and for that, I can’t manage to push anger in her direction.

‘How are you holding up?’

Someone cuts into the moment I’m spending brooding in front of one of the two goals set up on opposite ends of the stadium. They’ve miraculously let us onto the Mineir?o’s bright green field, which seems to have delighted Miguel, Peter and Henri, who’ve been kicking a ball around with cackles and whoops. It’s the last person I expect, out of the three of them, to meander over to me. It’s Henri, leaving the other two to their own devices at the other goal.

‘Holding up? I’m all right.’

‘Hmm.’ He raises an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘Well, our team trainer and your lady love did happen to leave a few days ago with little to no warning, and a notice to the entirety of Heidelberg that she’s “fulfilled her task” here. You’ve got to be struggling.’

‘Well, the thing is—’

‘Did she dump you?’ blurts Henri.

God, these kids. Nothing if not straight-shooters. I throw my hands up in disbelief. ‘Really, dude?’

‘Hey, if you’re not going to give Miguel a valid answer, I figure I might as well try. We’re all slightly concerned. This came about pretty fast,’ he points out.

Before I can respond, a stray ball lobbed in our direction cuts off the conversation, and I deflect it with the inside of my foot.

‘Pass it back!’ calls Peter with a wave of his arm.

Henri gives me a knowing glance. ‘Kick it out, dude.’

I do. I kick everything out of my system until the ball hits the back of the net a satisfactory number of times, all the anger evaporating into thin air so thoroughly that by the time I get back home at the end of the day, to the one person I’ve always been able to open up to with little effort, I’m ready to talk.

I drive over to our Santa Teresa house. It’s seen me through my best and worst times, and I need it to see me through this one, too. Small, simple as it always has been, with all my mom’s chaotic flowers and bushes surrounding it. I’ve never minded the size. It holds plenty of love, anyway.

M?e is out the door the second I’ve pulled up. With a broad smile and a hug smelling of peaches and mangoes, she’s made me a little kid again, running to her after my first karting victory in San Francisco. She ruffles my hair. ‘Oh, Magalinho. Finalmente .’

My mother sits me down on an eye-popping yellow couch, and before I can even suggest it, arms me with a can of Guaraná, my favourite soda.

‘ Diz ,’ she demands. ‘Last I saw you, you were on, what, summer break? Talk to me.’

It takes a minute to find the words. I pop the tab on my soda, killing time. Pai’s always been a sore topic for her. Everything I know about him – everything – is a mishmash of my hazy memories and stories from my tio and tia . But I ask, because maybe I should have done so a long time ago, and because, right now, I think only my mother has what I’m looking for.

‘Why’d you never find anyone else after Pai?’

She’s been leaning forward intently, but now, it’s like her face freezes, a mask of shock.

‘M?e?’

‘ N?o me diga isso .’ My mother’s jaw is stiff, set just the way I do mine. ‘I won’t have answers for you.’

‘But you do, huh?’ I insist. ‘ Por que n?o? ’

She shakes her head. ‘Why you ask me this, Darien? Out of nowhere?’

I’m not actually sure why, and my lack of a response is all she needs to figure it out. Her voice goes soft, her face sad, as her eyebrows lower slowly, her eyes full of concern. ‘Darien … what happened with Shantal?’

And there it is.

Moms don’t really have to probe, they don’t have to conduct a thirty-minute interview to get down to the nitty-gritty and extract the information from you. They know you went out that night with your friends to TP Sam Pullman’s house, they know that you pregamed senior prom, they know that you suffered your first heartbreak because Cindy Gomez said she did not, in fact, want to go see John Wick with you, and they know when you hide something – anything – from them. I’ve never had to hide anything from M?e. She always finds out before I can tell her.

I lean back against the couch, looking straight up at the ceiling to avoid letting the tears go. I tell my mom everything, from the very beginning, from how I found out what happened to her, to how we got closer and closer until our paths crashed, and I realized that my life had been divided into ‘before Shantal’ and ‘after Shantal’. I told her about the moment that I really, really fell, when I gave her that steering wheel, and when it all went to hell, Shantal’s parents, Shantal’s obligation to her parents, leaving her with M?e’s bracelet.

‘Right girl, right time,’ my mom had told me when she gave me that bracelet at the beginning of my F1 career. Right girl, I’d ticked that box, at least. As for the time? It’s possible it could be so cruelly wrong.

‘So how come you never moved on?’ I nearly whisper the last two words. ‘How come she can’t bring herself to?’

With a heavy sigh, my mom smiles sadly. ‘As women, all we’re told, all our life, is that we are the centre that has to hold. We undertake responsibilities for others, Magalinho. With every person we care for comes a sacrifice. We hold the centre, even if that means not moving on. Even if that means doing whatever it takes to patch things up, if what you patch up heals someone for whom you care. Especially if what you patch up will fill a hole left behind by grief.’

A hole left behind by grief. My father’s death. Is that why she never found anyone else, because she had to look after me? Because I became her responsibility? ‘M?e …’ My voice cracks. ‘I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you had to … I didn’t know, didn’t do anything to …’

‘Magalinho.’ M?e takes my face in her gentle hands. ‘Don’t you say sorry. Yes, maybe Nico left, maybe Nico took the love with him, but he didn’t take it all. He left me you . You didn’t need to do anything. Even if I was hurting, I still had you. You are reason enough for me to never look for anyone else, anything else, Darien. Hope. Esperanca .’

Her reassurance is as warm as it’s always been, the kind of thing only a mother is capable of, but her words stick in my brain, echoing over and over until they lose meaning, and then regain it.

We hold the centre, even if that means not moving on.

What do I do if Shantal is my centre? What do I do if I can’t hold without her?