春 (spring)
Wildflowers, Death Valley. Sally's lived next door her entire life–half on one side, by the sea, and half in the Cadillacs, desert mountains–but she's never been. She's surprised that Lightning has. Never took him for a "stop and smell the roses" kind of guy.
"First of all, that's a sand verbena, not a rose," Lightning huffs.
Then he admits it's Mack who'd insisted on the detour. It's Mack who loved the flowers. "I'm gonna be honest," he says, "Mostly what I see is a bunch of different colors, inches apart, all packed in a field."
When the wind blows, it looks like they're racing.
夏 (summer)
Lightning is scarce. Summer's a long haul, scorching week after week with little reprieve. There's technically two races this week–Sunday's, and then next week's a Saturday night, under the lights.
Summer is Ornament Valley's boom time, and always has been. Before it meant three or four customers a month, intrepid stragglers who thought they wanted to camp out but didn't. This summer, Sally runs out of maps and has to order more. When she opens the new batch, Radiator Springs gets its own prim, black dot, name typed neatly in bold font. She'd had to pencil it in on the old ones.
秋 (autumn)
It's cool in autumn. Back in LA, autumn is wretched–hottest months of the year, a lot of the time. Errant wildfires, the last of the season. Undeserved heat waves. Arizona autumn is clear, sandstorms having mostly settled, dust beat down by the occasional rain. The skies are bright with stars you don't see as well in summer–because of the tourists, because of the way heat bends, because of distraction. Who knows.
Mater's been teaching Lightning astronolology.
"You mean astronomy? Or astrology?" Sally asks.
But Lightning shakes his head. "No, both. At once. It's complicated."
She can tell Lightning wants to reassure her that he knows that that is not a real thing that exists, but Mater's been telling a lot of stories lately that never happened. Except maybe they did. And Lightning's not willing to bet against the house.
冬 (winter)
"Never race again" gets thrown around a lot. The doctors believe it sounds less traumatic than "might die," or at least that's what Sally thinks. But give a team of doctors a thousand dictionaries, and Sally's profession can still school their profession at word games. She's tendered enough malpractice suits to say this with certainty.
By the time the year ticks over and the world is bright with new beginnings, Lightning's still in a coma, and Sally does not celebrate. That's the way it goes with cars sometimes; you can replace their parts and rebuild their bodies and the you of you just doesn't come back.
When he does flicker back into existence, it's January 4th, and Sally's not even in the garage. Then he's gone again.
She worries for a week she's missed him forever.
On January 12th, he loops around again. This time he stays.
The doctors give him 4-6 months to measurable recovery. If he can pass a road test then, maintain enough focus and presence to be safe on the highway, they'll release him under supervision. They advise her not to tell him that, though. Too much information, too much pressure. Stress can slow recovery.
Sally tells him.
Lightning nods. Because he's here now–really here. And he knows what he wants, and what he needs to do.
無季
Lightning is home.
