6. Isaac
Chapter 6
Isaac
Second Year of Medical School
11 Years Ago, October
“ I t really should be a quick fix once we get the new terminals.” Mr. Carello props one elbow on the middle console, controlling the wheel easily with his other hand. “An hour tops, I’d say.”
“Thank you, sir, I appreciate you doing this.” Why am I nervous? This is just Jo’s dad. “I am forever indebted.”
The most important man in Jo’s life.
Some hefty shoes to fill.
“Oh hell, you do plenty of watching out for my baby girl, I should be thanking you,” he chuckles. “And please, call me Leo.”
I swallow hard, nodding, though he probably can’t see me.
“Thank you, sir.” I cough. “Mr. Carello, I mean, uh, Leo, sir.”
The truck turns slowly into the busy parking lot of the autopart store. Leo finds a spot right next to the cart corral.
Now I know where Jo got it from.
Though it’s only a short walk from the truck to the front of the autopart store, it feels like I’m trudging through years of my life. There’s something about being with him.
Seeing how much of her lives within him.
“You okay, son?” Leo’s baritone voice mixes with the sound of the automatic glass doors as we enter. I clear my throat, pulling a cart along with us by the front edge.
“Yeah, just a long day. We have a few tests next week that I’m very much not prepared for.”
He nods, contemplatively. “It’s a lot of work you two are doing. You must be pretty smart.” Leo guides us towards the third aisle, black batteries stacked in neat rows. I scoff, shaking my head with emphasis.
“Jo is way smarter than I am. She’s basically pulling me through.” So many late nights turn to early mornings while she forces me to study for tests when I lose motivation. Seventh and eighth cups of coffee while she quizzes me on anatomy and neurology. After-lunch pep talks when I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’ll never make it through the program. Jo has already sacrificed so much of herself to see me succeed, and I’m just not sure why. I’m a useless cog in the wheel of our friendship.
I scan the shelves for what I think we might be looking for. Small metal pieces are encased in plastic bags, labeled with various letters and numbers. They all look the same to me.
“She speaks very highly of you.” Leo reaches out, grasping a few bags from a cardboard box on the middle shelf and turning them over in his hand. “Let’s grab you a new battery and cabin filter while we’re here. When was the last time you had an oil change?”
I shrug, my cheeks heating. “Uh, to be honest, I’m not sure.” Damn my father for not teaching me about cars.
“We’ll get that changed. Grab some 5W30.” I stand rooted to my spot, staring at him. “Ah, I see.”
“I’m sorry sir, I am not usually this dumb.”
His deep, hearty belly laugh ricochets off the metal shelving units. It’s Jo’s laugh, just two octaves deeper. “Nonsense, I’m just pissed that my baby girl hasn’t taught you more.”
An elderly man brushes past us, pausing to look Leo up and down. He continues on his way, reaching the end of the aisle before turning to face us once more. “Ahem,” he approaches slowly from our left. “I’m so sorry to bother you.” His voice is scratchy, like he’s smoked three packs a day for the last thirty years. “Leo Carello?”
Leo looks up from the battery terminals and nods. “That’s the name on my birth certificate, yes.” My eyes bounce from one older man to the other. Am I going to need to break up a fight in the middle of Aisle Three?
The gray-haired gentleman shakes his head in exasperation. “As in Leo Carello, two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500?” My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline as I lean forward, pressing my forearms against the handle of our cart. A furrow appears between Leo’s brows, but he relaxes his face as quickly as it appeared, reaching out his right hand for a shake.
“Guilty as charged.” The men shake on a beat of awkward silence.
A race car driver? And a good one, at that. I wonder why Jo never mentioned it.
“It’s a pleasure. I watched your first win in person. Was it 1987?” Leo nods, dropping the man’s hand and tossing two of the small parts from his left hand into our cart.
“1987.” Leo crosses his arms tightly in front of his chest, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “Hell of a year.” The strain in his voice tells me all I need to know.
I pull my phone from my pocket, glancing at the barren home screen and waving it towards Leo. “Jo wants to know when we’ll be home,” I interject.
A fluorescent light above us flickers and Leo reaches into his back pocket, revealing a stack of wallet-sized autographed photos. I careen my neck, attempting to catch a glimpse of the image of twenty-something Mr. Carello. Before I can, he takes one from the stack and hands it towards the gentleman, returning the rest to his pocket.
“Thank you so much.” The man revels at the photo, now gripped firmly between his thumb and forefinger. “I can’t wait to tell my wife I met you!” He turns once more, exiting the aisle with significantly more pep in his step than before their conversation.
I make eye contact with Leo, who is fiddling with the collar of his flannel. A faint hint of a sparkle in his eyes and two lines between his brows are the only remnants of the conversation.
“Indy 500, eh?” I tease, pressing him gently. He quickly waves me off, grabbing the cart and propelling me forward clumsily. “Okay, okay, message received,” I laugh.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he says exasperatedly.
We gather the remainder of the supplies. A battery and terminals. Two different filters for something. Five quarts of oil. Five .
Where the hell does all that oil go? I guess I’m about to find out.
Once we’re back in the car, Leo’s mood seems to have returned to his pre-fan encounter. The bag rolls audibly in the truck bed in time with the left and right turns it takes to get us back out onto the main road. I glance down at my phone, an image of Jo and I smiling back at me.
“When are you going to tell her?”
My mouth drops open and my stale gum falls directly onto the glass of my phone with a small plop.
“Uh, tell who what?”
Play dumb. Keep playing dumb.
“How long have you been in love with my daughter?”
All the oxygen in the truck cabin is suddenly replaced with carbon dioxide. The effort it takes to expand my lungs rivals a post-marathon runner. I’m going to die in the passenger seat of Jo’s dad’s truck.
The weight on my chest transforms from ten pounds to fifty pounds when he continues, “It’s painfully obvious, son.”
I sigh, pressing my palms into my eyes until blurry white spots flood my vision. “It is?”
The truck hits a pothole and I nearly punch myself in the nose. There’s no doubt in my mind that Leo can hear the beat of my heart right through my chest.
I need to study my cardiology notes. This is not normal behavior.
“She speaks very highly of you.” His voice is quieter now. Carefully pushing the gear shift to park when we reach my building, Leo turns his body to face me. “I like you, son. You seem like a smart kid. Good head on your shoulders.” He glances past my shoulder and smiles gently. Jo is approaching, freshly showered, wearing one of my high school t-shirts.
“Yes, sir.”
“Look at me, Isaac.” I swallow hard, glancing out the window at Jo before turning to face Leo. He might as well add wrapping his hands around my throat with the way he’s looking at me.
Somehow he’s cool, calm, and collected, but also completely terrifying.
“Take care of her for me.”
That’s not at all what I was expecting him to say. Let’s be honest, no one needs to take care of Jo. If I even tried, she’d scoff and roll her eyes. I’m fine, I can take care of myself, she’d say. But even though I can barely take care of myself, I would stop the world because I want to take care of her. The image of Jo’s phone screen lighting up with a text from Andrew stops my brain from wandering any further down that dangerous path. I wish I could promise Leo I’d take care of her. I wish things were different.
But they’re not.
A knock on the window stops me from immediately pissing my pants.“What’s going on in here?” Jo pulls open my door, her eyes bouncing between us. “Did you get the parts?” She steps back as I swing myself out of the passenger seat.
“Yeah, got the parts and then some,” I chuckle. “I’m gonna learn today.”
Leo meets us behind the truck and pulls open the back hatch, revealing all the supplies he refused to let me fund. “ Buy me a beer and we’ll call it even,” he’d said.
“I guess I’ll order a pizza.” Jo shrugs, her shoes scuffing against the concrete as she leaves us alone in silence once more.
“And don’t you fucking dare hurt her.”
His words slap me across the face with their force and delivery, solidifying the fact that I need to get over this. I need to let it go. I won’t hurt her because I’ll stay away from her. Safety in distance. Safety for my heart and Andrew’s face.
“Now let’s get to work. You might want to get a notepad.”