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I rush Amber out of the showroom, saying, “I’m sorry, he can be a little rude. He’s one of our biggest Greece-based clients.”
“You have a lot of customers in Europe, huh?”
“The rich men’s playground.”
“I guess,” Amber sighs, deep in thought.
I lead Amber to the ‘Speed Wing’ where The P is stationed. I welcome the silence away from the crowd.
“This is The Peregrine. Just arrived from Switzerland last month.”
“Switzerland?”
“We broke the water speed record with her on Lake Geneva.”
She stares at The P, as if recalling something. Perhaps she remembered seeing it when she Googled me. What else could she be thinking about?
“Lake Geneva…” she sighs. I almost didn’t hear her.
“Yeah. I’m sure you’ve been there, right?” A stupid question, since she used to live in Geneva, but there’s something on her face that makes me think she’s not so fond of the lake. Not wanting to probe, I stick with the Peregrine. “We’re in the process of adding specialty lights—we want to set a record for nighttime speed. Imagine, the water lights up as it passes.”
“You’re crazy!” she says. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
“I’m serious.”
“Should I be worried?”
I pull her close. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. It’ll be a calculated attempt.”
As I catch a glimpse of my gold chain on her, a rush of emotions surge within me.
“You know, the day I broke the record was the day my parents died.” I didn’t want to destroy the mood, but with her beside me, she just took the words right out of my mouth.
She rubs my arms. “I’m sorry, Rob.”
“He was schizophrenic.” I purse my lips, and then exhale. “When I last saw you, I told you that my parents were getting a divorce. In fact, I’d been fighting a lot with my dad, to the point that I almost didn’t want anything to do with him. Well, a big part of the problem was his illness.”
“But Matty changed it all. Am I right?”
I nod, appreciating that she remembers. I try to rein in my disgust, but I say to Amber-Rose bitterly, “He’d been skipping his meds, and I have no doubt in my mind he had an episode and caused the accident. In a way, The Peregrine has become a symbol of their death. It was his dream to be the fastest man on water—he had no grace to let me have it. So he ruined it.”
I used to think that Mom was lucky to find Dad. She was an orphan and had been going from one foster home to another until she met him. Graeme Hartley genuinely loved her, and he did take good care of her. They certainly got on with things fast—I was born a year after they met. She was only fifteen then, and Dad was eighteen. Both always prided themselves when they talked about my birth, claiming it was one of the best days of their lives. And I could see in their eyes that it was.
But in the end, the man who loved her also took her life.
Was Mom lucky? Even the devil doesn’t know.
“You sound angry,” Amber-Rose says gently.
“I am. I’m still angry at my dad.”
“Was he a violent man, Rob?” she asks, tentatively but at the same time adamant that she has to pose the question.
“No. He never laid a hand on Mom or any of us. He was a loving man, and even gentle, I’d say. When he was psychotic, he would distance himself from us. He would hit the streets at a sprint to get rid of the voices in his head, and to shake off his rage. Despite that, his moods were still hard to deal with, and I couldn’t help thinking that his illness was his ego. After Matty was born, he got things under control. But the illness managed to make its way back with a vengeance. This time, his way of escape was to drive—fast.”
“You have to forgive him, Rob. It was his illness, not him.”
“But it was his choice not to take his meds.”
