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“What’s not easy?” I asked as she eased onto the leather sofa next to me.
“Being involved with a race car driver.”
“How did Mom deal with it?” I asked.
Rosa had a sixth sense when it came to both me and my mother. She always knew what we were thinking and feeling. I had loved Rosa like a second mother, sharing my most intimate secrets, things I’d never dream of telling my mother. It had been Rosa who had explained sex to me years before my mother got around to it. I had gone to Rosa when I’d had my first period, in a panic that there was something wrong with me and that I was bleeding to death.
“Well, your father and Mr. Flynn are two very different men despite what your mother thinks. Your father wasn’t an overly outspoken man; he hated the press and stayed as far away from it as possible. He also hated parties and banquets. Your father’s idea of a good time was staying at home with his family. However, I can see why Devin reminds her of your dad. When your mother met Marco, she was a little younger than you are now, and he was about twenty-three, out to prove himself. He was a young man for that caliber of racing, and he had to show them he belonged. Devin acts much in the same way.”
“In how they race?”
“More in how they behave. Your father thought if he kept the company of beautiful women, it would garner him more respect. He always had a model or actress on his arm, but unlike Devin, he didn’t always take them to bed at the end of the evening. Don’t look at me like that, I hear things!” We exchanged smiles. I knew she kept up with racing gossip. “When he met your mother, things changed. The models disappeared. All he could think about was Maria. He was obsessed with your mother and with winning her over.”
“And how do you know all these unsavory things about Devin?”
“The internet.”
“I thought you didn’t like computers,” I said with a smile.
“It’s all rumor and speculation anyway.”
“I didn’t think Devin was much like Dad. For instance, it’s been a week, and we’ve barely spoken. If what you’re saying is true, Dad would have never allowed that to happen. I’m beginning to think Devin’s replaced me.”
“Your father couldn’t let an hour go by without being with or talking to your mother. There aren’t many men like Marco Perez. I have never seen a man so devoted and dedicated to a woman. There’s a dark side to that, though. Your mother began to depend on him far more than she should have.”
“When he died, she was lost,” I murmured.
“It was like half of her body had been sliced away. Sometimes being with a person too much can be just as harmful. I’m sure Devin hasn’t replaced you, and having someone who isn’t devoted to you every second of the day is actually healthy.”
As always, Rosa had the wise words, and I knew it even though my heart still doubted it. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost Devin. I don’t think I could be as strong as Mom.”
“Your mother has had some very difficult times. Every time your brother walks into a room, it’s like seeing your father’s ghost. Losing someone you love is very difficult, and the reminders and memories can be heartbreaking, but you learn to live with the loss.”
“Do you think she loves Tony as much as she loved my father?”
“It’s a different kind of love, but she does love him very much.”
Hmm. I knew they loved each other, but I often thought that Tony loved her a lot more.
“So you believe there are different kinds of love?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“No reason.” At least no reason I would tell Rosa.
Rosa looked at her watch. “I should start making lunch. We can talk later if you’d like.”
“Yes, I’d like that.”
I put the album away and went to my mother’s office. I pulled out my phone and googled my father’s name just as Blake Carlton had suggested, and there were millions of hits. Almost fifteen years after his death, he was as popular as if he were still alive. Most of the sites I scrolled through proclaimed him to be one of the best drivers to have ever lived. I found some websites that had been made in tribute to his memory. There were photos of him in action, racing down various tracks. I was never more proud of his achievements, and I wondered why I’d waited so long to look him up online.
I thought as an article about his death popped up. I read it anyway. It blamed the unsafe track outside Detroit for Dad’s death. For years, drivers had complained about it, and not until my father died there did they make the necessary improvements. But for many drivers, safety protocols hadn’t gone far enough. Many now moaned about the track in Hungary, and I couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t the safest.
But something else grabbed my interest. The author suggested that Dad was past his prime at the time of the accident. I’d never thought about that before. He’d been thirty-seven at the time, and according to the writer, many thought he’d have retired by then. But he loved the sport too much to give it up. That made me think of Blake. He was nearly the age now that my father had been when he died.
I heard Tony and Mom enter the house. I thought to end my search, but one website caught my attention. The information was a little old, but the description intrigued me. It put forth the possibility that my father’s death had been covered up, a conspiracy of sorts.
Isn’t there always one conspiracy nut?
