Chapter 14 Luis
Luis
When Luis couldn’t sleep, he drove. It was not only a significant part of his job—he was a test engineer for Stellantis, which designed Fiats and Alfa Romeos, among others—but it was also a comfort. When he was a baby—a fussy one—his dad had figured out that Luis would sleep if he was in his car seat with the engine running. As he got older, he fell in love with kart racing. He never became good enough to be a professional race car driver, but when he got to university, Luis discovered engineering and how he could make working on cars and driving them part of his career.
Now, in the middle of the night, he hit the freeway toward Valencia, settling into a speed fast enough that he could hear the wind resistance but not so fast as to be reckless, not after Matías’s boat accident. It would be a seven-hour round trip from Madrid to Valencia and back, but there was an art to driving long distances that Luis had mastered from all those hours spent on racetracks over the years. He turned on his playlist of classical music, slowed his breathing to a meditative state, and did not allow himself to envision the end of the journey, only the road immediately beneath his tires.
But it was harder than usual to clear his mind, because of Matías. Older than Luis by thirteen years, he had been a different sort of brother. For as long as Luis had memories, Matías had basically already been an adult. It was Matías who had suggested that their parents allow Luis to try kart racing. Unlike the rest of the family, Luis and Matías shared the same fearlessness—and if not for his older brother’s constant reassurances to their parents, Luis would not have the career he had today.
He clenched the steering wheel in a decidedly nonmeditative way.
Even though Matías could be absentminded about some things, he never forgot birthdays or their parents’ anniversary. He picked up the phone anytime Luis or Aracely called, regardless of the hour in New York. Even his art was a gift, a smile in a world that too often frowned.
He is too good to die, Luis thought.
“You promised you would be there the first time I led a design team for Maserati,” Luis said out loud as the road to Valencia curved and then stretched out before him. “I haven’t done that yet, and since you always keep your promises, I guess that means you can’t die.”
He imagined Matías laughing at the joke.
It made Luis feel a little better. Not entirely, but enough for him to keep going.
And that was the most he could ask of this night.