Crazy Blood

Chapter Thirty-One

“What was he like, Mom? Dad.”

Kathleen set the croissant on the baking rack and looked across the worktable at Wylie, her face flushed and the great vertical worry lines setting in her forehead. Wylie had been waiting for days for a private moment to ambush her. Now they were doing the morning prep at Let It Bean, the girls were sleeping in on this Saturday, and Steen was home putting tarps over the worst parts of the roof.

She picked up another handful of dough and began forming the next croissant. Her face was still red, but Wylie saw that the worry lines had let go, and he thought he saw the suggestion of a smile on his mother’s face. “He was... impressive.”

Wylie nodded, surprised by this, though he’d had no idea what his mother might say about Richard Carson. He cut the dough, got the wedges a little big. He’d always been an earnest but untalented apprentice.

“Of course, I was seventeen when I met him. To me, he was a god, and my coach, and I fell for him. The Carson men — they have that... quality. Then as I got to know him over the weeks, I discovered that he wasn’t the cool king he pretended to be. But he did a great job of faking it. He wanted to be liked. He was polite, but provocative and charming. Under the influence of alcohol, which was often, he became unpredictable. Never mean or morose, but hyperenergetic and out of kilter. Alcohol or not, he was funny in a goofy, boyish way. He made fun of almost everything and everybody, including himself. The general feeling on the mountain back then was that his lack of seriousness about racing was Richard’s Achilles’ heel as a competitor. He also doubted his nerve. He was serious about his students, though.”

“How old was he?”

“Twenty-nine. He’d had a good Olympic showing at Sarajevo in ’84 but broke a leg six weeks before Calgary. When I met him, he’d retired from downhill racing, but you wouldn’t know it to watch him ski. Out there first thing, every day, carving his name on that mountain. He said skiing was more fun than racing. He was very dedicated to his students, though. I think he was trying to make something sacred for us that was never quite sacred to him. It worked on me. He taught me to love skiing. And I wanted to race. He told me I could be good enough, that it would take training and luck. I felt that I was a born racer. I had the speed need, courage, and cool, good eyesight and reflexes. I wanted to race and win, then have a family. Like Richard. I wanted to do what he had done.”

Wylie mulled this over. He had overhandled the dough and had to start over. “He was married and had two kids, Mom.”

“Ouch. Yes.”

“I’m not criticizing. I’m just—”

“Stating the facts of the case.”

“Exactly.”

Kathleen kneaded and pressed and shaped the pastries with nearly automatic precision. Wylie had always been impressed that her hands could do one thing while her mind did something else. “Really, one of the hardest things has been what to tell you and what not to. And how to give you the truth in the right amounts. When you were eleven, and we took that walk, and I told you that William was made up and that your father was Richard — I saw I’d hurt you. Your face changed in that moment, and I swear there’s a part of that expression I still see sometimes. It about killed me when you ran. It wasn’t right, what I told you then. I thought I’d ruined you.”

“I made it to twenty-six, Mom.”

She looked at him across the flour-dusted stainless table, her hands working away as if without the rest of her. “Tell me what you want to know.”

“Did you have sex before him?”

She reddened again and shook her head.

“Then Richard Carson was your first?”

“Yes.”

“Was it really at a party?”

“Yes. Such a perfect storm that night. Everything hit me right at once, Wylie. All my admiration for him and my commitment to what he was great at. All my tingling attraction and desire for an almost but never before... thing. All my youth and reckless courage. The damned alcohol and Richard’s total attention. That basement room was so welcoming and private. Another world. I knew he would never be mine. Never leave his wife or children. That made him more perfect. I knew he’d had other girls. I didn’t care. To me, at that moment in that place, he was what I wanted. He was there and I took him. I knew it was wrong. That didn’t matter.”

Wylie understood what she was saying, but he found the visuals troubling. “Did... when Cynthia... were you and Richard still in the bed when she...”

“No. Richard was playing Ping-Pong in the game room and I was out on a deck, looking at the stars and wondering what I’d just done. I was crying because I was afraid, then crying because I was sad. Utter confusion. Total regret. I heard the shots. Not loud. Five. I wasn’t sure at first what they were. Then the screams. Looking through a sliding glass door I saw her marching across the room, people flying from her path every which way. Pregnant and showing. She looked very purposeful and focused. Not in a hurry, but not taking her time, either. I could hear the door slam when she went out. And somehow I knew what had happened and that she’d seen Richard and me, or been told. I made my way to the game room and through the crowd and finally saw. It was so terrible, son. He was so beautiful and peaceful and all those holes. Torn up so badly. I still see him like that. I’ll never get it out of my head.”

“Wow.”

“Is right.”

“Jeez.”

“That, too. Cynthia got prison and I got you.”

Wylie worked a long while in silence, his croissant dough suddenly fascinating. He finished it and began another. The secret was the force: too much and the pastry would toughen when baked. “Why not adoption or abortion?”

“I thought about them, but not for very long. When I knew you were in there, everything changed. The world had flipped and then it flipped again.”

“You gave up skiing? Dreams. All of that?”

“Racing, not skiing.”

“But you gave it all up?”

“I changed. This will sound... well, I’m not sure how it will sound — but what I did with Richard was the most destructive and most wonderful thing I’ll ever do. I ruined lives. And gave you yours.”

Wylie felt a shudder pass through him. Like a seismic tremor, he thought, or a swell or a wave of sound. I am a simple moment in the rush of time, he thought. So much does not depend on me. So much is given and nonshedable, no matter the wars you fight or the miles you trudge or how fast you go down a mountain. I showed up. I am innocent. And I am connected, separate but part of. “Was I worth it, Mom?”

“You will never know...” Wylie watched the tears well in her eyes and an impossible-seeming smile come to her face. Still, her hands continued forming the thing to which they were devoted. “...how much I love you.”

Then he was tearing up because she was, and they met at the halfway point of the table and embraced. Laughter followed, soft and complicit within the smells of flour and coffee, steamed milk and tears.