Chapter 7

Dena emerged from the bedroom and Race scowled angrily at her.  She returned the look with a glare of her own.  “What are you doing?” she hissed in harsh whisper.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked just as harshly.

“I’m on my way to make lunch,” she said, stepping down the hallway and away from the bedroom.  He followed her.  “And spying on Chris right now won’t get you brownie points.”

“I don’t want brownie points; I want my wife back!”

“Keep your voice down, you idiot,” she said, grabbing his arm painfully and tugging him into the kitchen.  “Come on...I want to make her fish tacos, but I always mess it up.”  

Race grumbled as he pulled out the ingredients for Chrissie’s favorite dish and helped Dena put it all together.  Chrissie was the cook in the house, but he did alright.  Fish tacos was the first thing he learned to make after he found out how much Chrissie loved them.  He badgered his mother-in-law for weeks for the recipe and had to promise that at least one of their kids would be named after her in order to get the Snow Dragon to give it to him.  And the freaking dish took over an hour to make...two, if he marinated the fish properly.

Race cooked it for Chrissie at least once a week.

“How is she?” he asked as he chopped up the jalapenos.  

Dena shot him a scornful look.  “She’ll be fine if you leave her alone for a while to get used to all this.”

He shook his head.  “I can’t do that.”

Dena, on her way out to turn on the grill, pointed a set of tongs at him and said, “Well, you’re gonna have to.  You have to be patient.  Few marriages are successful without a little patience.”

Race snorted.  “Words of wisdom, Dr. Dena?”

“Yes,” she said, popping him on the head with the tongs.  “And I’ve got a lot more where those came from...jerk.”  She muttered that last part as she disappeared out the back door.  

Race finished chopping the peppers.  He had to admit.  If anyone knew how to deal with a marriage that wasn’t a marriage, it would be Dena.  She couldn’t fix her own lovelife, but she might know how to fix his.  As a sister-in-law, she was infuriating.  As a therapist...well, she maintained a 4.0 grade point average all through college and grad school and trained under the best therapists in the region.  Chrissie bragged about it all the time.  And Dena told him last week -- in secrecy so it wouldn’t spoil Chrissie’s birthday -- that one of the leading counseling centers in the nation invited her for an interview.  That had to mean something.  And she was pretty good about snooping in other people’s relationships and offering advice that wasn’t solicited.  And people actually listened to her.  That was a kicker, right there.  Realistically, Race realized that Dena had her good points.  The woman could probably even fix Mike’s marriage.

Hmm, he should give Mike her number.

Dena came back inside as Race dumped the peppers into the saute pan.  “Chris asked me to stick around for a while,” she said.

“I know.  I heard.”

She crossed her arms across her chest.  “And I’m going to ask that you move downstairs to the basement for a while, too.”

Race didn’t say anything.  He’d already come to that conclusion.  If the looks of wary and fright from when he tried to touch his wife were anything to go by, climbing into their bed tonight would probably give Chrissie a heart attack.  And he didn’t want that.  He didn’t want to push her further away.  Already, she stood on the other side of the universe from him, and all he had was a sling shot to get back to her.

"I realize that you aren't too happy about that," Dena went on, "but we've got to work together and do what's best for Chrissie...and right now she needs our patience more than anything."

“I’m patient,” Race muttered, scooting the jalapenos around in hot oil to soften them.  Then he set the pan aside to allow the peppers to cool while he whisked together some chili pepper, lime juice and cilantro.  

Dena washed the tomatoes at the sink.  “What you are is competitive, Race.  It’s one of the best things about you, but it’s also your biggest flaw.”

Race sneered at her as he added the sauteed jalapenos to the lime juice mixture.  “What you said there made no sense,” he said as he dumped the mixture and the mahi mahi fillets in a plastic container.  He set that part of the recipe aside to allow the fish to marinade.

Dena gathered up her tomatoes and jerked her head toward the back door.  “Come help me with these.  I always burn them...and what I mean is that you’re a competitor, Mr. Horace Willard...”

Race blanched.  “We talked about the name thing -- remember? -- Adalene Hill.”

Dena rolled her eyes as she dropped the tomatoes on a plate next to the gas grill and started poking a metal skewer through them.  “Mine is a family name...your parents were on crack when they named you.”

Race grinned because he knew his baby story well.  “Pot, actually.”

“Anyway...what I was saying is that you see something you want and you go for it...you do it when you race, you do it when you train for a race, you do it when you hear about something that Chrissie wants...and you did it to get Chrissie in the first place.  You knew what you wanted and you didn’t stop until you got it, and you didn’t let anyone else have her either...remember that Isaac guy you shoved off Mom’s mountain the morning after you met Chrissie?  He was helping her with her skis...the next thing we knew, the poor guy was sailing down the slope inside a trash barrel.”

Race’s grin widened.  That had been a good morning.  “And your point?”

“My point is...hey! pay attention!  Your tomatoes are on fire!”

Race quickly removed the vegetables and focused back on Dena.  “My point is,” she repeated, “your competitiveness and stubbornness won Chrissie over in the long run...but right now, that’s not going to do you any good.  You’re not a patient man, big brother, and if you want to help your wife in any way, you’ve got to learn patience first.”

They went back to kitchen to start on the salsa and garnish.  “Okay,” Race said, walking his knife through the roasted tomatoes.  “How shall I learn patience, O’ Wise One?”

Dena jabbed him in the butt with a fork.  “By keeping your big mouth shut, you stupid ape.”

“Ow!  I’m still sore down there, thank you very much.”  Race rubbed at the butt cheek, mentally reminding himself that he did not get his massage yet.  He sighed inwardly.  It looked as though he’d have to call up his standby masseuse.  “And I don’t see the relevance of keeping quiet about all this.”

Dena exhaled a slow breath and crinkled her nose, something Chrissie did, too, when she was upset over something.  “Listen...I honestly don’t know if something like this has happened to anyone else.  I mean, loosing her memory of the past two years, I can understand.  What boggles me is that she hasn’t lost the last two years, she’s lost you.  It’s almost like she’s got a selective memory, but she’s not doing it on purpose to piss you off.  So...the only thing I have to go on is to think about this as though you are two people who love each other but can’t get along.  There are programs -- therapy exercises -- that help that, and I think it’s what you’re going to need to help Chrissie get through this.”

“I don’t need therapy,” he argued as me mixed up the salsa.

“No, what you need is to be knocked upside the head,” she shot back at him.  

He crossed his arms and stared at her.  “The volatile threats don’t help me much, Dena.”

“Then stop being a butthead,” she said back.  “And you forgot the garlic.”

“Chrissie doesn’t like the garlic in her salsa,” he said with a smug smile.

Dena rolled her eyes.  “Okay, fine...whatever.  Can we get back to helping you?”

“I’m not the one that needs help.  That’s my wife...your sister.  Can we focus on that?”

“Marriage is a partnership,” Dena said in her counselor’s voice...one that Race hated.  It meant she was about to start talking in psychological terms and he tended to get bleary-eyed when she did that.  “Anticipatory coping--”

Race groaned and rubbed at his temples.  Dena thumped him on the chest.  “Pay attention,” she demanded.  “Anticipatory coping is the process of foreseeing and preparing for something bad you know is coming.  Lets face it...we do it everyday.  You do it when you prepare for a race.”

Race sighed.  “No one could have foreseen this.”

“No, you’re right.  We couldn’t have guessed in our wildest imaginations that Chrissie would have woken up this morning to half her memories gone from the last two years.  But that’s not what I’m talking about.  What’s the worse race you’ve ever done?”

He glared at her.  She sure did like to switch subjects.  “Why does that matter?”

Dena returned his glare.  “It matters, if you would cooperate with me for one freaking second.”

“Do you talk this way to all your patients?”

“Just answer the damn question.”

Race threw up his hands.  “The Rouge Roubaix.”

“Why?”

“Because the roads are crappy,” Race said.

“So, what are the kinds of things that usually go wrong in that race?”

“Pile-ups, broken bones, flats, rookies that think they can take on a hundred miles of dirt roads and potholes without a scratch...”

“So, why do you do it?” Dena asked pouring half of the salsa into a separate bowl and adding pressed garlic to it.  “I like the garlic.”

“Just don’t breath on me,” Race said, “And I do the race because it’s The Rouge Roubaix...just saying you completed it is a big deal.”

Dena studied him.  “So, it’s worth all the pain and problems you know will happen?”

“Hell, yeah, it’s worth it.”  He started to think she might have a point to all this, but all  he could think about was Chrissie, and her shocked face when he showed her their wedding photo, and the way her cheeks blushed bright pink in the hospital as she realized that she could have been pregnant...would she remember him if she carried his child?  What would she have done if she had been pregnant?  He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing his wife and a baby, cuddling together, and his heart ached for what he might not get because of her memory loss.

“So how do you prepare for it?”

Race, getting exasperated because he wanted to talk about Chrissie and not his damn racing career, grunted.  “I train off-road for a few weeks, get my bike tuned for it...spend a couple of days on the track before the race.  Why does it matter?”

“I’m getting to that,” she said, crinkling her nose again.  “Now, let’s talk about patience.”

“Dammit, Dena!  Just tell me how to win Chrissie back!”

“I will if you would shut up and listen to me,” she shot back.  “Patience.”

Race jerked open the refrigerator to grab the cabbage and onions for the taco garnish.  “Fine...patience.”

“What does patience mean to you?”

He slapped the vegetables on the counter.  “Hell!  I don’t know!  It means to...to have patience!”

Dena pulled the cabbage over to her side of the counter and started slicing it.  “Patience comes from the Latin word, patientia, meaning to suffer or endure.”

“Fine,” he said, waving his carving knife at her, “get on with it.”

“I am...shut up.  Patience also means the ability and wil-ling-ness,” she said that slowly, “to suppress,” and she emphasized that with a jab of her knife in his direction, “annoyance when confronted with a delay.  So, when those rookies you were talking about get in your way, how do you deal with it?  Do you get angry and start yelling at them?”

Race snorted.  “No.  That’s a sure sign to loose your concentration.  I just get away from them and get on with the race.”

“So you don’t let them get to you?”

“Would you please just get to the point?”

“My point is that when you decide to do The Rouge Rou-...whatever it’s called...”

“The Rouge Roubaix,” he supplied with another superior grin.

She gave him that Female Evil Eye, and Race grinned wider.  “When you decide to do the race, you know in advance that problems will arise and you prepare for that, and when the problems do happen, you deal with them with patience.  Now, in saying that...what’s the worse thing that could happen with Chrissie?”

He didn’t have to think about that answer.  “She won’t get her memory back, she decides that she couldn’t love me again, she files for a divorce, and I lose her forever.”

Dena propped her hip against the side of the counter.  “Anticipatory coping and patience will get you across the finish line a lot smoother than demanding you get your wife back.”

Race dropped his knife on the counter with a clatter.  He braced his hands against the edge and hung his head.  He really hated it when Dena was right.  “Okay, okay, I see your point.  What’s the next thing?”

“First, you learn patience,” Dena said with a heavy sigh.  “And we plan for the worse.”

He looked over at her, shame and panic shining through his eyes.  “I don’t know if I can,” he confessed.  

Dena got tears in her eyes.  “Me either,” she whispered, “but we’ll have to...for Chrissie.”

“Anything for Chrissie.”

His sister-in-law touched his arm and smiled.  “Anything for Chrissie.”