Page 99 of Downforce

Max glances down at me, obviously hearing the awe in my voice. No one can be a true fan of Formula 1 and not have heard about Severino’s perfect lap, and not wish to be able to have seen it.

Today races are recorded from almost every angle. I can pull up almost any race within the past fifteen years and rewatch at my leisure. Not Severino’s perfect lap, though.

“He said, for the first time, he knew what it was like to fly. When he described it, he said it was the second time he felt closest to his Creator.”

“What was the first?” I swallowed, snapping my mouth shut, wishing I could pull the question back. Sometimes my mouth runs before my brain has had a chance to catch up and stop me. My curiosity gets the best of me.

Max pauses, something taking over his face that I can’t name. “The day I was born,” he explains, voice thick with emotion.

It’s my turn to squeeze his hand.

“I remember being there at the race. I was too young to understand what was happening, but I remember a hush fell over the entire crowd. Something that never happens. Ever. But that day it was quiet right before everyone erupted into applause the moment he crossed the finish line, crushing his previous day’s record.

“I knew without understanding that even if he didn’t win the Grand Prix that year, he’d already won.”

A frowning wrinkle appears along Max’s forehead.

“We waited for him in the garage and the entire team swarmed him as soon as he was out of his car. He cut through all of them and lifted me high in the air, shaking me with a look in his eye that I don’t remember ever seeing.”

Max goes on to say something else but snaps his jaw closed with a slight shake of his head.

“Not long after, my mother took me by the hand and led me out of the paddock, saying we had to go home. I remember, for some reason she put me to bed super early, even after I begged her to let me stay up until Dad got home.”

I fight hard to keep the glare off of my face at the mention of his mother. I’ve done a great job of completely avoiding the woman in the past few weeks. Mainly out of my fear that if I do see her again, I would smack her.

I can guess why she didn’t want Max staying up for his father that night. And unlike most loving parents, I doubt it had anything to do with true care or concern for her son’s well-being.

“Years later, as a teenager I read an article of an interview with my dad. The journalist asked him about that race. He’d told them the same thing he’d told me. That he knew what it felt like to fly. That it was like his soul hovered above his body, watching everything and guiding him.”

He stops, again looking back at me as if choosing his next words carefully.

“That was the moment I started to feel jealous.”

“Of who?”

“Everyone,” he answers. “All of the journalists, fans, teammates who had a story about my father. All of the fans who wore his name on a piece of their clothing. The journalists who talked about a joke he made with them one time during a race weekend.

“It felt like everyone had a piece of my father. A piece I could never have because by the time I was seven years old, he was gone. They had years of memories and shared stories with him that I wouldn’t have. Parts of him that he had yet to share with me, but I had to share what I had with them.

“Every time I stepped onto a racetrack, I got the comparisons, the questions on if my preparation was similar or different from my father’s, what words of wisdom do I think he would have given me before a race, what do you think he would’ve said after that race,” he says in a mock journalist’s tone.

“I had to share him with the world. I hated it. I still do.”

“I hated it, too,” I say without thinking.

Max turns to me with a narrowing of the space between his eyebrows. The corner of my mouth quirks upward as I take the time to stare at him. I try to push away the breathlessness that overtakes me at the sight of the depth of emotion in his eyes.

A year ago, I would’ve said he wasn’t capable of this kind of emotional profundity, but even then I would’ve known that was a lie.

Pushing away the time I first noticed a similar look of anguish in Max’s eyes, I say, “Even though my dad retired from football while my brothers and I were still pretty young, there were times when we were out and fans of his would come up to him to ask for photos or an autograph. He went into broadcasting so he’s still pretty popular.”

I give Max a small smile.

“One day he took me on a daughter-daddy day, and three different fans approached us for pictures. For the most part, he kept the interruptions brief and did his best to make sure I never felt slighted, but I was a daddy’s girl and I wanted him all to myself.

“That night I complained to my mom that ‘everybody gets daddy but me. It’s like he belongs to everyone,’” I say in my mock seven-year-old voice.

“My mom shook her head and told me ‘he’ll never be to everyone what he is to you. You have your own relationship with your father that no one will ever have. Not even Tristan or Travis or Chloe. All of the relationships we have with our babies are unique’.”