Читать книгу The Caged Ruby - Rodney Syler - Страница 2

Late in the evening as Taylor organized the parts in her dad’s garage, a shoe crashed through the small window in the door to the house. Bits of glass tinkled to the floor as she moved her arms from over her head and reached to turn the music up a notch. Picking the shoe from the floor, she sat it neatly on the step, swept the glass, and resumed straightening the garage. She kept a radio at mid-volume, not because of the music, but to avoid hearing the raised voices in the house.

Lately her father spent more time trying to keep her mom calm, and less time teaching Taylor about cars. It was not a total loss. She could learn most everything on her own. If it was in books, she could learn it instantly. What she craved was to learn what people knew that was not in the books. The feelings and intuition, the facial expressions that gave weight to words, these things could only be learned face to face. She missed the face to face time with both her mom and dad.

Her dad was a race car mechanic and builder. He was not the best driver, but he knew more about tuning a car to make it cling to the track than anyone she knew.

Shouts from the house rose above the music, so she eased the volume higher. In recent months her mother had become paranoid and afraid to interact with the public. Her gifted mother, who was once written about as a genius with a miracle memory, had devolved into someone who could not even care for herself.

The problem was that her phenomenal memory, once capable of almost perfect recall, now could not be turned off. Memories with sound and pictures flooded her mind out of control. She was overwhelmed and melted down under the onslaught. Sometimes it took hours to snap out of it. Lately it took days.

The sound of sirens lilted above the music as she placed a carburetor squarely on a shelf. Taylor cried as fear seeped into her thoughts—fear that her mom would require full time professional care. But her worst fear was that she might become just like her mom.

Taylor worked hard to hide her gift, which now seemed more like a curse. Eidetic memory apparently ran in the family. Though some people would give anything to remember everything, Taylor sometimes wished she could just forget. She turned the music higher and sobbed as she put the garage in perfect order.

At fourteen, she didn’t have a driver’s license, but often took race cars around the track. Tall and strong for her age, she had no trouble with the controls. After the ambulance left, with her father by her mother’s side, Taylor turned down the music and pulled the cover off her personal stress reliever.

She still had some body work to do, but the drive train was complete. With money she had earned working around the race track, she bought a wrecked muscle car for nearly nothing. Weeks of work, and the car was almost like new. The engine was modified and better suited for the track than the street.

Needing to get away from the stress of the evening, she raised the garage door and rumbled into the night.

***

When she pulled back into the driveway, her dad sat in the garage waiting for her. Turning off the engine she pitched him the keys. She said, “I figure you will want these. I just had to get out and clear my head.”

“How fast did you go?”

“Within the speed limit until I got to the straight away near the track. I ran it out a little, but I was just trying to get Mom off my mind. The wind and fresh air helped more than the speed.”

“One day you are going to get caught without a license and it’ll be expensive.”

“I know. I have some money saved up.”

As he pitched her back the keys, he said, “Any problems with the car?”

“A few rattles at road speed. I’ll fix them with the body work. Are we going to keep talking cars, or can you tell me about Mom now?”