Letters to Nowhere(68)

Gymnasts don’t scream like that. Ever.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Bentley near the front desk, watching me carefully. I drew in a deep breath and then headed for the locker room, avoiding the stares from all the preschool parents.

I was yanking my stuff from my locker as fast as possible when Blair appeared behind me.

“Karen, what’s going on?”

New beads of sweat had begun to form on my forehead and my chest felt so tight. “If I tell you, can I leave without talking about it? I really need some air.”

She nodded.

I squeezed my eyes shut, spewing out the words as fast as possible. “I have nightmares. Lots of them. My parents are broken into pieces, body parts everywhere, and I keep seeing my decapitated dad’s head rolling toward me and just a minute ago I thought…” Breathe in, breathe out. “God, this sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, but in my head it’s so real.”

She put her hands on my arms, holding me in place. “Look at me, Karen.”

I opened my eyes and tried to breathe.

Her fingers tightened around my arms. “You can get through this. I know you can. It’s like a mental block. Break it down and figure it out, okay?”

I was hit with about twenty percent relief hearing her speak my language. “Thanks, Blair.”

She released me and I snuck out of the locker room and through the front doors of the gym before anyone else could stop and chat. I began to feel more and more resolve as I drove home, already forming a plan for the afternoon. I needed something. I needed information.

Some of their accident story had been public, but I couldn’t find the details on the Internet, and at the time it had happened, I hadn’t let myself hear or see any of it. I hadn’t thought it’d help at first. But Grandma had put the obituaries in my old room, which meant they might be in those boxes Jordan had put away in the garage.

I practically ran through the front door, tossed my stuff onto the couch, and made myself a turkey pita sandwich before heading to the garage. There were boxes everywhere, and since Grandma had hired movers to move my room here, I couldn’t tell my boxes from what was already here.

I spent a couple hours digging through my old items—pictures and trophies and birthday cards and ribbons and scrapbooks—all while taking trips to the kitchen to grab a banana or another bottle of water. Eventually, I opened a giant box that had three thick photo albums, all the same shade of gray–blue. Curiosity took over; this was either something of Bentley’s or something of my parents’. Both options intrigued me.

After removing the first album, I opened it up and scanned the pages. They were full of pictures starring a girl with white–blond hair and a toddler boy with sandy blond hair. The girl looked about seven or eight, maybe.

Eloise and Jordan.

The first several pages were filled with fall leaves and Halloween costumes. An entire row of little Jordan dressed as a giant pumpkin. My gaze stopped on a photo of a woman holding Jordan, dark blond hair just like his and an identical nose. She looked so young and pretty and tall. She might even have been taller than Bentley. It occurred to me right then that I’d never asked Jordan his mom’s name.

“He hated that costume.”

I jumped, gasping and clutching my chest when I heard Bentley’s voice, and saw his feet firmly planted right behind me. I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut, the album still stretched across my lap.

Coach Bentley crouched down beside me and eventually sat down on the floor. “He wasn’t a tortured child, I promise. He just hated that costume. That’s why he’s crying in nearly every picture.”

I held my breath as Bentley reached across me and removed the second album from the box. “You might like this one.”

I leaned closer, examining the spread of pictures of Bentley in his Team USA apparel. In one photo he held a tiny blond toddler girl with stick–straight pigtails coming out of the sides of her head. “That was my last competition. World Championships in France. We had Eloise pretty young.” He laughed under his breath. “It was a little unexpected, so money was tight while I was still training and Anna was at Juilliard.”

Anna. So that’s her name.

He flipped through more photos of himself smiling with his teammates. “Her parents bought tickets to France for Anna and Eloise as a graduation gift. That was the only competition they got to travel to until I started coaching.”

“But didn’t you—”

“Tear my bicep during a training session in France?” Bentley finished, flashing me a tiny smile, maybe so I wouldn’t think he was upset with me for bringing it up. “Yes, I did. That was the end of my career.”

“Did you have surgery in France?”

He shook his head, flipping through some more pages. “They packed my arm in ice and put me on a plane to London. We stayed with Anna’s family for a few weeks, and she was offered a part with the London Symphony and I was offered a coaching job with the British men’s junior national team. Eloise grew up in the gym with a bunch of sweaty boys. She learned swear words before proper English. Symphony rehearsals weren’t exactly the best place for a little one, so Eloise and I were coworkers early on.”

Maybe that’s why he never seems to mind that Stacey’s got Olivia with her at every practice.