“You-?”
“There’s a quaint old term people used when I was a girl. Grass widow. You know it?”
“I think so. Someone whose husband isn’t dead, but has abandoned her?”
“Close enough. Richard didn’t abandon me, though. We just-came to a parting of the ways.”
Terence grunted. “Everybody does, in my experience.”
“Well, Richard and I stuck it out for thirty-five years. We built Nash Furniture together. Heard of it?”
“Is it expensive? My mother probably has.”
She smiled. “Reproduction colonial furniture in native cherry and walnut. Largely handmade by local craftsmen. Yes, it would set you back a thousand or so for an end table. Anyhow, about five years ago Richard wanted to sell the company and retire, which was fine with me-until he told me what he wanted to do with his newfound freedom.”
“What was that?”
“Move to Florida. Buy a condo or a McMansion in one of those million-dollar stalag communities, and play golf with the wine-and-cheese people in perpetuity.” She sighed. “I told him that if it was a choice between that and the back of Dr. Kevorkian’s van, I’d just take the van, thanks all the same.”
“He went without you?”
“He did. There were no hard feelings. We didn’t get a divorce-neither one of us wanted a feeding frenzy amongst the lawyers. Richard just took his half of the money and went south, and I stayed in our house near Wilkesboro, with my horses and my volunteer work.”
“So you and my dad really were just friends?”
“Sometimes it’s nice to have somebody to talk to over dinner. Tom used to like to watch NASCAR on television with me so that we could argue about it. He was a nice man. I miss him.”
“What would he have thought of all this?” said Terence.
“The tour?” Sarah Nash considered it. “Well, above all, Tom Palmer was a sensible man, but a reticent one. High as he was on Dale Earnhardt, I can’t quite see Tom making a speech over a wreath on some speedway. I think he might have made a few caustic remarks about all this, but he would have done it in private. I know that if people had carried on this way over Tom’s death, he’d have been mortified.” She smiled. “That may have been a pun. Mortified. I think Dale would have felt the same way; they were a lot alike.”
“And I never got to meet either of them,” said Terence.
“I think the question is: how are you enjoying this trip?”
“Uh-fine.” He honestly hadn’t considered it. “My mother always stressed that a true gentleman was at home in any company, and I try, but sometimes I feel that I’m just equally ill-at-ease in any company. Mother never had any patience with people who wouldn’t try the food in a foreign country, wouldn’t learn to speak the language. She called them barbarians. So I never waste time wishing I were somewhere else, or comparing one place to another. I’m along for the ride. But it’s great to see all the Southern speedways up close. It gives you a new perspective on the sport.”
“And on your father’s world.”
“Well, I suppose,” said Terence. “But it makes me wonder if I would have had anything to talk to him about besides racing.”
“Well, if you want to find out, maybe you ought to try to talk some more to some of your fellow passengers.”
Terence looked over at the rest of the group and shrugged. “And say what?”
The Number Three Pilgrims stood in the parking lot gazing up at the deserted Speedway. “It seems fitting to see the place empty,” said Ray Reeve gruffly. “More of a memorial, I guess.”
“You got that right,” said Shane McKee. “If you ask me, even when they’re racing here, the place is empty.”
“I kind of miss the mountains surrounding the Bristol Speedway,” said Cayle. “It was such a pretty setting.”
“Well, you may see those mountains again in a day or so,” said Harley.
Justine seized the Rockingham memorial wreath before Ratty could get it completely out of the luggage compartment. “This is the best one!” she cried, holding it aloft. Smaller than the two previous tributes, the wreath was fashioned in the shape of a heart, using white silk dogwood flowers, a symbol of North Carolina, as Justine had informed them. Earnhardt’s trademarked number 3 was picked out in the center of the heart in smaller flowers dyed black.
“Cayle, you ought to do this one,” she said. “Since it’s the next stop after Mooresville.”
“I wouldn’t know what to say,” said Cayle. “I tried to tell him I was sorry it happened when-you know. But I’m no good at making speeches. You could help me. And we could get Matthew to carry it for us.” Justine handed the wreath to the boy, and the trio wandered off in search of a suitable place to leave it, while the rest of the pilgrims trailed behind at a respectful distance.
Bekasu caught up with Bill Knight again. “I’ve been thinking about that sainthood business,” she said. “You know, people have been trying to make Elvis into one for years.”
“I know. I have a clip file on Elvis phenomena. The people who claim to see his face in cracks in the ceiling plaster, or to get advice from him in dreams. There’s even a story claiming that there were strange lights in the sky the night he was born.”
“UFOs,” said Bekasu, and they laughed. “But, seriously, I wonder if there’s anything like that about Earnhardt?”
Bill Knight hesitated. It had been on the tip of his tongue to say that it was too soon for the legends to spring up. He wanted to tell her that the gospel of St. Luke-the only one of the four to mention angels and the Star of Bethlehem-had not been written until a hundred years after the crucifixion. That was the sort of remark you had to be careful making if you were a minister, though. Even people who didn’t believe expected childlike faith from the clergy. Instead he told her, “It’s early days yet. Remember that Elvis died in ’77, so there has been more time for the legends and myths to take root. Just wait a couple of years. There’ll be sightings.”
“Well, we’ve had that already,” murmured Bekasu, looking around for Cayle. “I just wish I knew what to make of it.”
“You know the options as well as I do,” said Bill. “Either it was real or it wasn’t. If it wasn’t real, then it could have been a dream. It was late at night on a dark road. Cayle may have drifted off to sleep without realizing it. Or it could have been a hallucination induced by the panic of being stranded on a lonely road. If it was real, then it could have been someone dressed up as Earnhardt for-I don’t know-a costume party or a promotional gimmick. And then there’s that last possibility that we come to with great reluctance. That she really did see him that night, and that it really was him, somehow. A ghost, perhaps? Such sightings are not that uncommon, after all. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter. All through history there have been odd little events from time to time that no one could really explain, but they didn’t change the fabric of civilization. Sooner or later, people just shrugged and went back to business as usual.”
“But you don’t believe she saw him?”
Bill Knight shook his head. “Of course I don’t.”
Justine put her hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “How are you doing, hon,” she said. “We need to buy you sunglasses at the gift shop here. It’s real bright in this sunshine, and it’s going to get brighter as we head south. I don’t want you getting sick.”
“I’m okay,” said Matthew. “Just kind of tired.”
The two of them had walked a little ahead of the others, still looking for a likely place to lay the wreath, which Matthew insisted on carrying.
“You’re sick, aren’t you?” said Justine, lifting up her sunglasses to give him a searching stare.
