Dana Mentink - Race for the Gold

Max was at the end of the table, a half-eaten chicken sandwich in front of him. Her father arrived, greeting everyone jovially, a bruise swelling his cheek as he settled in to listen intently to Max. She joined them.

“So this reporter really wants to speak to Laney. Said he’s called many times,” Max finished. “Do you remember hearing from him?”

Her father frowned. “What’s his name again?”

“Hugh Peterson,” Laney said, sliding onto the bench in time to see her father clank the glass down on the table so hard he spilled a puddle onto the wooden surface.

She blinked. “You told him no before, I take it?”

“Yeah, I did. He doesn’t listen very well.”

“Have you met him, Dad?”

“He’s no good,” her father said vehemently.

“How do you know him, Mr. Thompson?”

Her father waved a hand. “Not important. I know I don’t like him.” He turned a direct gaze on Laney. “You’re not to talk to him. He shouldn’t have come here after I told him no interview.”

The anger in his tone surprised her. “Why do you dislike him so much?”

“I already said that’s not important. Do you trust me to manage these things for you or not, Laney?” He stood, pushing back from the table.

She went to him then, circling him in a hug. “Of course I trust you, Daddy. If you don’t want me to talk to him, then I won’t. I was just curious, that’s all, and worried about that guy with the club who nearly decked you.”

“Max scared him away. He won’t be back.” Her father embraced her gently and rubbed circles on her shoulders, soothing, restoring the easy connection between them. “I’m sorry, Laney. I didn’t mean to bark at you. I just want to take care of my girls. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

She pressed a kiss to each of his cheeks. “I know that. Sit down and let’s eat. I’m going to Skype Jen soon and we can talk. She’s cramming for her biology finals now.” Laney felt the thrill of pride that her little sister, who’d once been an abandoned foster kid, was close to finishing her premed requirements. It was an achievement for anyone, but more so for a girl whose life had started out living in cars and stepping over dirty needles on bathroom floors. Laney thought Jen’s accomplishment outweighed any medal from any race.

He set her at arm’s length. “Later. I’ve got to have the car window fixed.”

“But...” She didn’t want him out on his own in case he was wrong about the violent stranger.

“I’ll be back.” He gave her shoulder a final squeeze and made his way through the throng.

“Why don’t you get something to eat?” Max said.

She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

He pulled her to sit next to him. “A girl who burns five thousand calories in a day needs to eat. I’ll get you something. Stay here.”

She didn’t argue. Her thoughts swirled around her father. Dan Thompson was not a man quick to anger. If anything, he’d been blessed with an abundance of patience and an overwhelming helping of compassion. An overworked cabbie, struggling to start his own small taxi business, he’d needed them in order to take in foster kids in the first place. It was a decision he and his wife Linda had made, having no children of their own. And what well of grace had made them take on two girls—a wild six-year-old kid with dirty hair, used to finding food for her and her sister in the garbage can when their mother left on her drug binges, and a selective mute who would not speak until she was nearly ten?

He could have walked away at any point. Perhaps when she’d taken Jen and ran away after being punished for punching the neighbor kid. Maybe when the teacher had sent her home for refusing to wear shoes in class. Certainly when Linda had died of breast cancer as they were still in the process of formally adopting the girls.

He’d stayed and loved them through it all, and introduced her to the ice. Stolen hours between his cab fares, precious moments where she’d discovered a passion and let go of the hurt. God-blessed moments. Her father’s face was composed and calm as he stopped to make some comment to Jackie, and it cheered Laney to see him that way as he left. Maybe there really was nothing wrong, after all.

THREE

After dinner, Max dutifully made sure the hallway door was locked when he escorted Laney to her room. He turned to find her shifting from one foot to the other. He recognized the fidgets for what they were: Laney trying to process something: worry or fear, anxiety about her father’s attack, no doubt.

So different than his own bent. When he was stewing on something he went quiet, withdrawing to a place where he could be perfectly still, hushed as the long corridors in which he’d become invisible seventeen years prior when his brother lay dying. The softest sound, the barest squeak of a rubber-soled shoe on those yellow hospital tiles could break the fragile silence that meant his brother was okay, sleeping peacefully through another night.

God worked in those still moments, he’d been told. So he’d stayed silent, waiting for healing that God withheld. Often Max would go back to that place in his mind, and his fingers would once again reach for his pocket for the tiny pair of scissors that was no longer there. He required stillness to wrestle with tensions he could not skate away from, but not Laney.

“Let’s go walk the track.”

She started, as if she hadn’t realized he was still there. “What?”

“You aren’t going to be able to sleep.”

“How exactly do you know that?”

Because I know you almost better than you know yourself. Every sinew, every muscle, every weakness, every magnificent strength. “You’re twisting.”

She looked at her finger, wound in the string of her windbreaker. “Well...”

“And your foot is jiggling up and down, and you look like you’re about ready to break into a wind sprint.”

She flashed an exasperated grin. “Sometimes I wish you didn’t know me so well.”

“I’m your trainer. It’s my job.” My job. So why did Laney Thompson feel like so much more than just his job?

“I’m just keyed up about what happened to Dad.”

“I know.” The hallway lighting picked up glints of gold in her hair, an irrepressible twinkle in her eyes.

“All right, Mr. Blanco. To the track we go.”

Max waited at the door while Laney changed into her running shoes and fed Cubby his fish dinner. Cubby was a slow eater, and Max stood patiently as Laney watched to be sure the old animal finished every bite.

“Good job, Cubby Cat,” she said as the cat licked his paws with a delicate tongue.

The night closed around them as they started away from the athlete housing, the sky pricked by numberless stars. To the left was a small trail that led to a lake now frozen over. They’d run it many times in years past when their training and competition schedule had brought them here. A delicate veil of snow drifted through the sky as they took the other direction, on a well-paved sidewalk that led to the training facility.

He wondered if she ever fought flashbacks of the night they’d been the victims of the hit-and-run driver. Though he’d never admit it, he hated to run anywhere in the vicinity of a road, preferring now to do his workouts on the track or on quiet mountain trails when he could find them. If he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to travel back, he could hear the skidding tires and the snapping of his own femur. Worst of all, he remembered hearing Laney cry out, his own body too mangled to allow him to claw through the snow to reach her. One quiet moan that would live forever in his memory.

He forced his brain back to the present as they hiked to the oval. He marveled again at the engineering feat required to build such a venue. Five acres, roughly the size of four football fields, nestled under a clear span suspension roof, home to a four-hundred-meter speed skating oval and two international-size ice sheets. Buried under the ice sheets and track were thirty-three miles of freeze tubes that kept the concrete base at eighteen degrees Fahrenheit no matter the season. They were headed now to the four-lane 442-meter state-of-the-art running track.