Race With a Heart
Chapter 67: The Sky is Blue

Chapter 67: The Sky is Blue

The day was a little cool, but still beautiful. The glorious sunny weather did not cheer him up, however. Steve Paxton felt a mounting unease as he walked towards Hannah’s grave. This will be his first visit since her funeral. He used to visit her every day, now he had no time for her for two weeks. He felt guilty of neglect.

He felt guilty also about something else. All too often his mind had flashed to someone other than Hannah. The girl lived too short a life to leave something permanent and to live in the memory of many people, so who will remember her except her parents and him? As for her parents, her own father abandoned her after the accident, forgot about her and started a new family. Will her younger siblings ever find out about Hannah’s existence? Will he ever come to lay flowers on her grave? So if not him and not her mother, who will remember this beautiful, cheerful girl who passed away so tragically and so sadly?

Though he had only been here once, Paxton had found her grave without difficulty. Exactly as he expected, he saw fresh flowers on it. Mother remembered.

Steve first said a short prayer for the peace of her soul. He was not religious and had forgotten how to pray, but when he was in the cemetery, he had to commend the soul of the deceased to God. Then he put the flowers down, very softly, he said.

"I haven’t visited you, I’m sorry. I have nothing to excuse myself. "

He wanted to tell her about his everyday life, as he had told her before, but for some reason it didn’t make sense in his eyes anymore. Whether there was life after death, reincarnation, or whatever, Hannah’s soul was not in that tomb. Only her empty body lay here. Steve was too realist to imagine her soul smiling down at him, yet he looked up at the sky and watched the clouds move for a moment. But even that gesture seemed empty to him. He scratched his head irritably and turned away. He saw Mrs. Robson standing in the alley a few yards away.

The woman looked haggard, maybe a little worse than the last time he saw her, but she smiled warmly at him as if she were looking forward to meeting him.

"Sorry I didn’t visit Hannah’s grave ..."

Mrs. Robson took his hand. Next to the cemetery there was a green square with a few park benches. Many elderly people visited the dead, so city officials thought it would be a good idea to provide them with a place to sit down and give their old ponds a respite. Often, more or less random meetings took place in cemeteries, the nature of which did not necessarily match a visit to a cafe, so a bench under a wide, shadow-shining plane tree could prove to be an ideal place for this purpose. The benches were placed at a distance from each other to allow everyone to talk freely, although in a low voice, without fear that someone on the bench next to him would be disturbed.

"You don’t have to do this," she assured him. "You don’t have to visit her or apologize if you don’t come. I was actually glad I didn’t see any signs that you were visiting her. "

"Mrs. Robson, please don’t say that!" Remorse rang out in Paxton.

"Remember what I asked you to do when Hannah was still alive? I asked you to finally start living. Live for yourself. When you didn’t come and I saw the news about you coming from the TV and newspapers, I was very happy. "

How could Steve, with this good, understanding woman, not feel guilty about his neglect of the deceased?

"Looking at you on the track, I was as happy as if I were seeing my son’s achievements. When your car went off the track and even the commentator froze in fear, I was terrified, so scared as if I were to watch my own child die, but when you won second place, I was so proud! "

In fact, pride sounded very clear in the old lady’s voice. The woman was probably not used to watching motorsports, so the emotions of the race were something new to her and the feat Steve did then - something extraordinary, although in fact it was a common maneuver. However, it could look impressive to someone who is not a racing connoisseur.

"You shouldn’t be worried," Paxton decided to reassure her. "The cars are very safe. Even if I roll over, I will be protected by the structure and helmet ... "

"I know," she admitted. "Now I know a lot about racing. I even started watching the qualifications. "

There was something extremely cute about an old lady who had just started to be a fan of motor racing. Mrs. Robson had watched them before because of Steve’s participation, but she had never shown such enthusiasm. It seemed like it was never too late to find an exciting new hobby.

"You know Steve," the woman looked out into space, still holding his hand, "I’ll probably sound like a disgusting mother, but after I’ve cried out all my tears after my daughter’s death, I can finally breathe. I don’t understand it, but the world I see is no longer black. The grass is green for me again and the sky is blue. In these three years, I forgot what these colors look like. "

Steve followed her gaze. The grass... it was green indeed. Like the leaves of the trees, which hummed slightly. The air smelled of pine needles and foliage and resin. You could hear birds singing. Some little birds with yellow bellies were jumping from twig to twig chirping happily. Sky was above them. The sky was indeed blue.

When was the last time Steve saw the sky was blue? When was the last time he heard birds sing?

Something strange moved in his heart.

"Yes, the sky has a really beautiful color today," he admitted in amazement as his eyes were wet. It was probably because he didn’t blink enough when he looked at the world around him.

"It was only after the funeral that I began to notice it," continued Mrs. Robson. "When I placed Hannah’s body in the grave, covered it with earth, I saw that the sky was blue. Steve, is that wrong? "

Paxton looked at Mrs. Robson.

After Hannah’s accident, the two were linked by an invisible bond of suffering and concern for the sick girl. Because of their joint pain, they often didn’t need words to understand each other. They learned to support each other, so the woman’s question was not at all strange.

"No, Mrs. Robson," he assured her, remembering their last conversation at the hospital. "It is not strange. I think it comes naturally to everyone. To some earlier, to some later. "

"And to you?" she asked hopefully.

Suddenly Steve thought that this woman suffered much more than he did, but decided not to engage in unproductive mourning, but to start living. But how will her willingness to live after her daughter’s death appear in the eyes of the world if the stranger mourns deeper than she does?

"Yes, it came to me too," he said, without even lying, because yes, it did come just a moment ago.

"I’m so glad," the woman breathed a sigh of relief. "I’m so happy ... Steve, tell me about your life. Not about work, about your private life. Has anyone appeared in your heart? "

Her question troubled him. He had trouble finding the answer, not because he was afraid of the woman’s reaction, but because he didn’t know what was going on in his heart at that moment.

"What if that really happened?" He asked. "What if someone really lived in my heart?"

"That would be wonderful!" Mrs. Robson beamed. "It would really be great! Tell me, does this person like you that way too? "

She got on to it so unexpectedly that Paxton felt lost and vulnerable.

"Yes," he admitted. "I think this person really loves me. But I... I don’t know. When I think about Hannah ... "

"If you’re rejecting that person for Hannah’s sake, stop doing that. Think. When you reject that person’s love, you are causing them undeserved pain. Do you want this person to suffer? "

"No! Of course not!" Steve assured a little surprised by the question. How could he want someone to suffer because of him, especially someone as sweet and lovable as Martin! "I..."

"If Hannah hadn’t reacted so hastily, she might have tried to fight for you, get you. But she hadn’t thought of it. Her accident was due to her recklessness, not the shock she had suffered. Yes, it might have shocked her that you were with a man back then, but if she really loved you ... "

"You know?" Steve was suddenly shocked himself. "Did you know that I then ...? Whence?"

"From Karl."

"When..."

"When did I find out? Right at the start, as soon as the doctors informed me that Hannah was in a coma. "

"And you didn’t hate me? Could you talk to me? "

"My God, Steve! What have you done so badly to make me hate you? I know you since you were a child! You were a good boy who enjoyed life without hurting anyone! Hate you just because you were with a man and not a woman? "

Mrs. Robson shook her head in disbelief.

"The person who finds a place in your heart is also a man, right?" she asked, guessing the truth.

"Yes," Paxton admitted.

"There are not many people like you in the world. If you managed to find each other in this big, evil world, you were blessed for which you should thank God and be together until the end of your days. Remember that the man who loves you also has the right to be happy. "

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