Authors: Shey Stahl
The pain
was fading with each day, just as the daylight washed into evening. It was
never gone. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to speak. It hurt to be touched. It
hurt to think.
Physical
pain faded as days went on and stiffness took its place.
I was sad.
I was confused. I was frustrated at the very thought of most things. It hurt to
think.
I saw
sadness all around me. People looked at me and I saw pity. My wife, I couldn’t
look at her without wanting to cry. I hadn’t cried that I knew of. Maybe a few
tears but nothing what I felt like doing. I couldn’t look at my mom. I wanted
to hold her and tell her I was sorry and how much I wanted to take away the
pain she felt but I couldn’t. It hurt too much.
I didn’t
want to see the pain anymore. I didn’t want to feel it anymore.
I wanted a
lot of things.
I never
wanted to see the look my mom had on my wife’s face. I never wanted to see that
look on another woman’s face again.
I hated
the feeling when someone said my dad’s name. I hated the heavy unfamiliar
feeling I got. I hated that his memory was fading with each day.
I hated a
lot of things.
I wanted
to comfort my wife and hold her the way she needed to be held. I wanted my kids
to remember me, but not like this. I wanted them to remember me as I was before
my life was ripped apart.
I tried
not to feel like a ticking time bomb. I tried not to feel a lot of things.
I tried to
remember that it wasn’t my fault, something broke on his car and that could
have happened to any of us. I tried not to feel the burden for the sake of my
mother. I tried to offer a smile for her.
I remember
a lot.
I remember
my dad.
I remember
the look on his face when I won my first championship, fighting back tears that
I did it. I remember being four-years old and I told him I’d be a champion
someday.
I remember
that he believed in me.
I remember
him telling me that hatred can fuel the brightest flame and that resentment
could kill you if you let it.
I understood
I needed a lot of things.
I needed
my wife. I needed my kids. I needed my family, my mom, my brother, my sister. I
needed my friends. I needed the feeling of being needed by them.
I needed
less wheel hop and more grip.
I was sad
and confused and remembering and hating. I had a lot of needs and frustrations
and memories and aches.
I had
wheel hop.
21.
Set-up – Sway
Set-up – A
combination settings on a car’s engine, tires, and chassis. Teams make constant
adjustments to a race cars setup up based on the drivers input.
Watching
Jameson being examined by countless doctors was difficult. For one, he hated it
and I didn’t like seeing their dejected faces when he wouldn’t respond or got
confused and told them the wrong answer. He could bend over without stumbling
and the headaches he got were so blinding that he would vomit. His mood shifted
drastically at times. So drastically that it scared me. He wasn’t hungry and
when he did eat, he would usually throw up. In the mornings, he was hard to
wake up sometimes, and had a seizure upon waking. The brain injury was taking a
toll on him. It didn’t help that he already had plenty of concussions in the
past and receiving a brain injury of this nature made it worse.
One
morning, his twenty-seventh day in that hospital, a younger female doctor came
in to perform her exams. She was apparently the head of Orthopedics department
and wanted to look at how Jameson’s bones were healing. His shoulder had been
giving him the most pain but his chest seemed to be worse.
“I’m Dr.
Baine
.” She reached for my hand and shook it. “I’m here to
look over Jameson and see if there’s anything we need to be cautious of before
we consider starting him on a rehabilitation program.” She smiled. “I’m sure
eventually he’s gonna want to get back in his car.”
Dr.
Baine
was familiar with race car drivers. Being the closest
hospital to Knoxville, they had seen their fair share of injuries related to
racing over the years.
Jameson
didn’t acknowledge her presence, his gaze still on the window.
I gave her
a smile for his lack of response and she smiled back. “Let’s get started.”
When she
removed the blankets, his bare chest was revealed. My eyes traveled the length
of his dwindling body to his chest, ribs and stomach that were still nearly
completely covered in deep purple blotches mixing with yellow and brown. Some
wounds were healing where others were making themselves known. It was hard
watching him lose weight and muscle knowing the toll it was taking on him.
My eyes
drifted to his tattoo across his chest under the bandage from his split holding
his shoulder in place. Reading the scripture that matched the one on my spine,
tears came to my eyes. Jameson’s met mine.
Jameson
rarely let anyone see that particular tattoo as it was something very sacred
between the two of us. It was the meaning behind how we fell in love. For so
long, we avoided the change in our relationship into what was there, staring at
us.
The doctor
read it and smiled softly knowing she may have over stepped her boundary. Her cheeks
heated and she looked away. “It’s a beautiful scripture.”
Jameson
said nothing to her in response, his eyes still on mine. It was strange looking
into his eyes now. They were different and I often wondered if they would
change.
Jameson blinked
watching me carefully as the doctor felt his stomach and then pulled the
blanket down further to reveal his pelvis. His eyes never left mine.
I
swallowed and dropped my eyes from his and finally looked at his injuries. You
could see every bruise where bones had been broken and now were healing.
Smiling, I noticed the marks of our drunken nights together before we were
married.
My eyes
drifted lower as she moved the blanket a touch lower revealing an area I didn’t
think to highly of her seeing. I looked at Jameson. He was looking at me still,
watching my reaction. I smiled letting him know I was okay and then took a peak
down there. I hadn’t seen him naked in weeks and yes, I missed my camshaft. The
thought of having sex wasn’t really on my mind these days but when she pushed
the blanket just a fraction lower and I saw his camshaft, my mind immediately
went there. Part of me was thankful it was still there, you know, still
attached and all. I don’t know why I thought it wouldn’t but it was reassuring.
When I
looked back up at Jameson, he winked. He knew me too well. I nearly cried it
was the first wink I had seen since the accident.
The nurse
left not long after that and left us alone. We didn’t speak much, small talk
regarding the kids and his sprint car team.
We didn’t
talk about his injuries and we didn’t talk about what I saw. We didn’t talk
about a lot of things these days.
He asked
questions but they were usually related to racing. We didn’t talk about the
void we felt and the distance that seemed to be growing between us.
When
Jameson finally watched the accident on television the reaction was similar to
the one with Darrin but different because he knew a life was lost. It was nice
that the media respected our wishes and never publicly played the video other
than that first night. Knoxville recorded the race but immediately released the
only copy to Alley at her immediate request. Something as horrifying as that
video didn’t need to be seen. Sprint car crashes are extremely violent when the
cars start flipping and that video clearly displayed the dangers and the
aftermath.
I watched
it with him and the only indication he gave that he was affected by it was the
heart monitor he was connected to beeping. It was tough to watch, both his
reaction and the video.
Of course
it happened on lap fourteen. Everyone that knew Jameson understood fourteen
wasn’t a number he liked. Everything bad that happened to him was related to
the number in an eerie way.
“Get rid
of that.” He told me as I took the DVD out of the player.
“You want
me to throw it away?” I asked turning to face him, the DVD in hand.
Jameson
looked from my hand to the window. He gave a careful nod and then closed his
eyes.
I knew
watching that had to have been hard on him and I didn’t want to go all Dr. Phil
on him because he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be bothered. So I sat
there and simply offered my presence.
I couldn’t
sleep that night but I also didn’t want to stay at the hotel with Emma. She
snored. Usually falling asleep beside Jameson in his bed, I removed myself once
he was asleep because I didn’t want to hurt him. His body was still so fragile
and one wrong move by me or him in the middle of the night could set his
healing back more. There was also the possibility of him having a seizure. I
was in bed with him when it happened once and it wasn’t pretty and he was more
upset with himself for smacking me in the mouth than reinjuring in shoulder.
Through
his window, I watched night give way to dawn, stars replaced with pinks and purples.
Soon a haze appeared as clouds moved in and snow began to fall. My eyes stung
from the tears last night and my back was aching from sleeping in the chair.
Rubbing my
eyes, I looked over at him to see that he was awake, quietly watching me.
“You
...
don’t look good.” He studied my face for a
moment, his eyes scanning and looking for something but what I didn’t know.
“Thanks.”
I said rolling my eyes.
“I just
mean…well…you haven’t been eating, have you?”
I gave him
a smile. “It’s
kinda
hard when your husband is
attached to machines.”
He relaxed
and a hint of amusement came over his worn features, “sounds stressful.”
We were
quiet for a moment and he asked, “Are they going to give me food today or do I
have to go get it?”
Looking
over at the clock I noticed it was nearly eight in the morning. “She should be
here any minute.”
Taking a
deep breath, he made a humming sound that, well, turned me on.
In that
moment, with that sound, my hormones went nuts. I think he sensed it, his eyes
met mine. Then he did probably the sexiest gesture he had ever done and believe
me, Jameson has done a lot of sexy gestures in his time.
His eyes
that were focused on mine slowly traveled down my body. From my eyes to my lips
and the path to my hips, he eyed me. Blinking slowly, he let out a shaky
breath. His breathing had increased, the heart monitor indicating the reaction.
Inside I was doing a victory burnout. I turned him on.
He winked
again and gave a light smile, his voice hoarse from the tube being in his
throat for so long and the usual rasp he had. “You’re still as sexy as I
remember.”
Sitting on
the edge of his bed, I turned my head to see if any of the nurses were coming
in and hating the fact that his room was all glass. “Are you
...
getting aroused Mr. Riley?”
He tried to
play it coy by licking his lips, his gaze focused on my lips. “Maybe,” he said
unexpectedly.
Hot damn.
“Would it
help if I showed you my boobs?”
A faint
smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Show me and let’s see.”
So I did.
I flipped my shirt up and showed him the funbags. Problem there was that his
nurse decided to pick that moment to bring his breakfast.
“Oh my,
I’m so sorry!” she screeched slamming the cart with food into the wall. “I
should have knocked!”
When she did
that, I turned and gave a full on shot to her of my chest. Yep. Nice move by
the Mama Wizard.
Hot damn?
Pft
.
More
like hot mess.
The nurse
covered her eyes and hurried out of the room. There wasn’t much else I could do
at that point so I turned to face Jameson and offered my only explanation. “I
saw that going differently in my head.” I said between giggles.
Righting
my clothing, I sat there still giggling and wondering what else might go wrong
when I noticed that my picture, a much crumbled picture by now, had fallen out
of my shirt and was sitting on his stomach.
I laughed.
Loud cackling laugh and it felt good.
And for
the first time in four weeks, I heard the sound I had been craving for. Jameson
laughed.
Actually laughed.
His eyes were creased at the
edges with that full on magical Jameson Riley smile plastered on his face. He
looked so much like the boy I fell in love with right then that I broke down
and cried in between my own laughs. I missed that boy so much.