Brent returns with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a stack of glasses.

I reach for a glass. “Good call. Might warm me up.”

Brent pours me a measure, hand shaky as he does so. I sip it and wince. God, that’s strong.

Dale and Heather are still arguing. His voice is an angry rumble; hers is plaintive.

“Want one, Curtis?” Brent says.

“No, thanks. So what do you do for work these days?” Curtis asks.

Brent pours himself a hefty measure and knocks it back. “Bricklayer.”

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

“Family business.” Brent must have seen our faces.

Now that he’s told us, I can see signs of it in the broadness of his shoulders, the roughness of his hands. The slight stoop of his back.

I think of his Olympic dreams and something wrenches inside me.

Fame is fleeting for most athletes, but especially so in sports as dangerous as ours. At the heady peak, you’re put on a pedestal and hailed as a hero, but one mistake is all it takes. Hitting the lip too fast or too slow; catching a rut left by the previous rider. One tiny error in judgment. Or sheer bad luck. The stakes are so high that if we thought about them we wouldn’t jump at all, unless we had a death wish.

We all fall eventually, but somehow Brent’s fall seems farther than most. He was Burton’s golden boy, the face of Smash energy drinks. For years I scanned the rankings, hoping to see his name, but he disappeared clean off the scene, just like I did. I assumed he must have had a serious injury, but now I wonder. Is the reason he stopped competing anything to do with me? If it was, I don’t think I could bear it.

Curtis recovers before I do. “And how is it?”

“It’s a job.” Brent sounds defensive.

“Have you got a website?” I say.

“Yep.”

Curtis and I share a look. So anyone could have found Brent’s email, too.

Heather hurries from the room, head down. Should I go after her?

No. She looked upset, and I couldn’t cope with the whole tearful-in-the-bathroom bit just now. I never know the right thing to say. When I’m upset, I keep it to myself. That was one good thing about Saskia. She would never do a tearful-in-the-bathroom on me.

I saw Odette cry once, but if I’d received the news she had, I’d have cried, too.

And never stopped.

She will never walk again.

I knock back the rest of my whiskey. I won’t think of that. I’ll catch Heather when she’s calmed down a bit.

Dale stands at the window, bottle in hand. He shoots a look at Brent, then turns his back. What has Heather said?

“How did you two travel out here?” Curtis says.