Chapter 32
The road settled her, pulling all the messy parts of her into tight focus.
She drove until she became another component of the vehicle, the line between machine and woman unclear.
Using her left hand to steer and bracing her right palm against the gearshift, she braked late into curves, floored the throttle on the straight lines, felt her stomach flip as she got air on a small hill.
The Judge barreled down the narrow roads with confidence, and the corners of Mack’s mouth tugged up when she pulled off a drift on a tight right-hand turn.
Driving fast was distraction and dopamine, pushing away the events of the day until all she thought about was when to shift and when to steer.
Like going to bed and knowing the sun would rise in the morning, pushing the clutch and pressing the pedal always brought Mack to herself.
She sped across central Indiana until the sun fully set and the horizon filled with pale peach light.
Long, dark shadows from sycamore trees crisscrossed with the waning sunlight, creating disorienting shadows across the narrow road.
She took a curve too fast, corrected, then overcorrected, the front end of the car careening from the opposite lane to the ditch at the side of the road.
With a lot of luck and a little skill, she caught the pavement and straightened the Judge up in the right lane.
She slowed, not even going the speed limit. Her hand throbbed from gripping the wheel too tightly during the slide. Her heart pounded against her sore ribs and she greedily pulled cool night air into her lungs.
Then reality came crashing down, turning the Judge from her supernatural getaway vehicle to the pathetic avoidance of her failures.
She promised to never leave her daughter, promised her safety and stability, and then took off with one whisper of the Indy 500.
She’d taken the once-in-a-lifetime chance Janet had given her and acted like a moody teenager, raging at the crew and sleeping with her teammate.
Then she’d crashed her IndyCar chance while Shaw watched, then argued loudly with Wes before slamming out of the RV without saying goodbye.
She’d used Leo when it made her feel good, then almost put his beloved car in a ditch.
She could have hurt someone else, or herself, driving like a reckless maniac.
She created chaos, then left without any explanation or warning.
Like Kelley.
Her hands shook on the wheel as Mack pointed the Judge back toward the Speedway, carefully winding back up the same dark roads she’d just flown down. She was messy, but she didn’t run from her problems.
Mack came to Indianapolis to retrieve some part of herself she’d thought she’d lost, and instead lost everything she’d built for her daughter. She had to go back and make things right with Shaw, then figure out what was next.
She’d driven farther out of the city than she realized, and thirty minutes passed before she hit the lights of the suburbs, and another thirty before she turned right onto Sixteenth Street.
The track loomed large in front of her, impossible to miss at this section where the back of the grandstands bordered the road.
As she stared up at the giant letters above the roadway proclaiming Racing Capital of the World, a swatch of light caught her eye.
The exterior tunnel entrance to the track was open, no gate blocking the entrance.
The Judge rumbled into the quiet infield, and Mack felt like a trespasser even though she’d driven this track only a few hours ago.
On Gasoline Alley, lights leaked out of a few garage stalls as crews fine-tuned their cars, relying on caffeine and hope to get them into the race.
Mack wondered what her team would be doing if she hadn’t slammed her car into turn two.
Would they be out at a bar, celebrating her qualification?
Or would they be here, looking for every millisecond of speed to get her in the field tomorrow?
She’d felt the pace coming on at the end of her stint, sure that she was gaining enough ground to make the field, until that pop.
She looked away from the bands of light.
To her right, she could make out the fountain where she’d sat with Leo, putting both of their reputations at risk and landing them on the other side of Janet’s good opinion.
What had she been thinking, touching Leo out in the open like that where god and everybody could see?
She hadn’t been thinking of her reputation, or his, or what Shaw might see, or anything at all other than what she wanted in that moment.
Reckless.
The Indy 500 had been a symbol of hope and dreams for most of her life, but now it felt haunted by her mistakes.
Easing the Judge into the parking space behind Leo’s trailer, Mack hoped the loud rumble of the engine wouldn’t wake him.
She left the keys under the mat, making a mental note to send him a Venmo for a car wash and hoping he didn’t ask questions about the muddy wheels.
She’d planned to go straight to Shaw, but a quick glance at her watch showed it was long past her daughter’s bedtime, so Mack turned toward the track instead.
Might as well take one last look at the Speedway and let Shaw sleep until morning.
Her soft-soled boots were quiet on the pavement as she passed the towering Pagoda and arching grandstands.
She walked through a break in the fence, and then she was standing on the same pit lane she’d left only hours ago.
The concrete wall felt cool and rough on her hands as she hefted herself over into the pit boxes, and the smell of burnt tires lingered faintly in the air.
She walked parallel, tracking through double streaks of rubber, trailing one hand along the inside of the wall.
After qualifications, each driver’s name would be painted on the wall of their pit box, and Mack blinked her eyes to clear the mirage of her name written in blocky black letters on the stark white surface.
Crickets squeaked over the distant drone of traffic and moonlight reflected off the aluminum grandstands behind her, casting a pale glow onto the asphalt of the track.
In a week, over three hundred thousand fans would fill the track, but tonight it was eerily empty.
Mack walked to the wall that divided pit lane from the track, lifting her legs over one set of barriers, then another, before her feet touched the front stretch of the track.
What would it have felt like to drive past these stands full of cheering people on race day? To hear them, see them, experience the spectacle of the Indy 500 with them?
When she reached the yard of bricks, that infamous three-foot swatch of the original track surface, she came to her knees and gingerly placed her hands on the textured blocks.
She remembered the vibration of the car as she sped over this strip, the brief zoop of the tires as they hit the roughness.
She rubbed the bricks, breath catching as she imagined the emotion of driving over this sacred piece of pavement as the green flag waved. She’d been so close. So very close.
A decade ago, she thought she’d lost any chance at the Indy 500.
Janet had given her that hope back, and the second loss of it hurt worse than the first. Back then, she hadn’t really known what she lost. But now, she knew it was more than a race she’d squandered: She’d lost the support of a team, the regard of people she respected, participation in something bigger than herself.
But more than anything, she’d lost the last chance to prove to herself that her earlier success wasn’t all a fluke.
The Indy 500 was her chance to redeem herself, to herself. And she’d failed.
Mack rolled to her back, lying directly on the row of bricks—a pathetic imitation of Dan Wheldon, a beloved driver gone way too soon, who famously celebrated his win by rolling around on the yard of bricks.
The rough texture of the pavement on her back was a pleasure-pain, cold and coarse and full of longing.
Was Wes right? Was Mack living her life like a prison sentence?
She knew she was lucky—Wes was healthier than ever, Shaw was bright and solid, Mack had a roof over her head and work that paid the bills—but why could that never be enough for her?
Why did she feel like she needed this place, this experience, this race to complete her?
The ground was cool but Mack’s face heated with shame.
Here in the dark silence, she could admit that Wes was right about one thing: Her deepest self had exhaled in relief when Wes told her he was selling the dirt track.
She did not want to run a small business.
He’d hurt her by going behind her back, but he’d released her, too.
She sat up and hugged her knees tight into her chest. The dark sky was starless, the blinking lights hidden by clouds and light pollution.
Above her, the bird’s nest hung thirty feet high, the signal flags neatly rolled and tucked away.
If she was released from the dirt track, what would fill that space?
Shaw, of course, always. She’d build new stability for Shaw, and if Kelley wanted to fight her for custody, he’d better come with a dozen lawyers and a crowbar because Mack would fight clean, dirty, and everything in between to give Shaw the life she deserved.
She’d move the damn galaxy to keep her daughter safe.
But what if the life her daughter deserved wasn’t the life Mack was giving her?
What if Wes was right about that, too? Had she made Shaw’s life too predictable and too small?
Mack had closed out anyone from her former career who’d bothered to stay in touch.
She didn’t have local friends, didn’t hang out with the other school moms, never dated and only did the hookup apps.
In closing herself off, had Mack accidentally closed off Shaw?