Page 144 of Final Drive

“Bo.”

“I’m not finished.” He isn’t shouting. That’s the worst part. “You spent nine days telling us you weren’t going to be handled. That we didn’t get to decide things about you in rooms you weren’t in. Then you got a phone call and decided something about all of us in a parking lot by yourself.”

I don’t have an answer to that. He’s right, and pretending otherwise would only make it worse.

“She’s not the only one,” Gray says.

Every head turns toward him. He’s standing at the end of the trailer with his hands at his sides, looking exactly as he did yesterday when I asked him to give me until tonight.

“I knew something was wrong yesterday,” he says. “I watched her take the call through the lobby window. I didn’t hear it and she didn’t tell me what it was, but I knew it was bad. She asked me to give her until tonight, and I did.” He looks at Bo. “So it’s two of us.”

The silence after that feels different. Less like everybody is waiting for me to explain myself and more like nobody knows who they’re angry with anymore.

Tyler is the one who breaks it, and he doesn’t say what I expect.

“I set up the alerts in February so we’d never get blindsided by a filing again.” He’s looking at his phone like it bit him. “It went off in the middle of the best day of your life. I built that.”

“Tyler.”

“It’s a stupid thing to be upset about.”

“It isn’t.” I wait until he looks at me. “It really isn’t.”

Bennett comes over about ten minutes later, when it’s gone quiet and nobody is looking at anybody. His face is hard but not angry, just resigned.

“I’m going to say my piece, and then I’m going to deal with the trailer hitch, since I’ve been putting that off all week and there isn’t going to be a better afternoon.”

Nobody says anything, so he goes on.

“I signed a roster certification a week and a half ago that I knew was going to cost me. Two donors and a member of the athletic board have made their position clear. I’ve been given the opportunity to retire at the end of the academic year, and I’ve accepted it.” He looks down the length of the trailer at all of us. “Today was the last race I will coach.”

Zane makes a sound.

“Don’t.” Bennett holds up a hand. “I’m sixty-one years old. I’ve had a good run, and I’m not standing in a parking lot while you people thank me. I want two things said, and then I want to talk about the hitch.”

He turns to me.

“First, you aren’t the reason. A grown man signed his own name to his own form, and he’d do it again. If anybody in this crew lets her carry that, they’ll answer to me while I’ve still got the title.”

He waits until I nod.

“Second, Callahan, next season you’ll be on the bank with me. You can’t race. Nobody said a word about you coaching. I’ll be around town, and I’m going to want something to do with my mornings.”

I open my mouth, but nothing useful comes out.

“Think about it,” Bennett says. Then he puts his cap back on. “The hitch is bent. Zane, come hold a light.”

He walks off, and Zane goes with him. Beckett watches them for a second before following.

My father is standing at the end of the row of trailers.

He’s been there since the medals. I’ve known it for the last ten minutes and have been letting myself not deal with it, but now there’s nowhere else to look.

I walk down to him.

He isn’t in the suit anymore. He’s wearing a polo shirt with a marina logo on the chest, bought somewhere local and a size wrong across the shoulders. My father has never in his life worn a shirt that didn’t fit him.

“That was the finest thing I’ve ever seen you do,” he says.