Formula 1: The GOAT

“You are pretty calm for someone who received two big pieces of news on the same day,” Rümeysa said, looking at Fatih, who was calmly eating dinner with her, his grandma, and Burak. They had just informed him of Burak leaving his full-time coaching position to go back to school, and making their relationship public.

“Only one of them is a surprise, and the reasoning is good, so there is really no reason for me to freak out, though I will miss him on the track,” Fatih said after he finished chewing and swallowing his food, before taking another spoonful of rice and chicken.

“Care to elaborate?” Rümeysa asked, surprised that Fatih had known about their relationship before they told him. “And aren’t you against it?”

“I’m fine with it, even happy that it happened with him, since I like him a lot and know who he is, more than if it had been a stranger I would have to get to know. As for how I knew…” he paused for a moment and turned to his grandmother, who was having a difficult time stifling her laughter. Their eye contact seemed to be the final push, as she broke down laughing.

“He is the one who discovered it during our phone call and came to tell me,” his grandmother said amidst her laughter.

“So you knew before I told you?” Rümeysa asked, embarrassed but also curious about how.

“Yes.”

“But why did you act like you were surprised by the news when I told you?”

“Why destroy a good surprise? Plus, it would be no different than me revealing it before you were ready to come out with it. It’s not like it is bad news that needed me to come forward to deal with it before it gets worse.”

“I’m slightly saddened that you didn’t ask me to remain and continue being your coach,” Burak said, acting as if he was crying to try and shift the direction the conversation was going, since it was very embarrassing for him.

“It is a trade-off between short-term pain over long-term gain. If I ask you now and you remain, I will be happy for at most four years before a problem occurs. But if I hold it in and wait for four years, then you will have the credentials to come with me all the way to Formula 1. So it is very clear what the best option is. Plus, you said you will still be attending the races as much as possible, so I will be getting both the long-term benefits along with some of the short-term ones with your attendance,” Fatih said, explaining himself. It was quite clear by his tone that he was slightly sad, though not enough to cry over it.

“Haaaaa, I give up,” Burak said, raising his hands in surrender.

“Well, it is not normal for kids his age to act that way,” Güldane said, looking at the two new lovers, who looked at her with curiosity. She added, “So don’t expect the next kid to also behave as mature as he did, if her upbringing is any indicator at all. I even wonder who he takes after, since he was very stress-free to raise compared to the nightmare she made me go through,” she finished with a knowing smile.

“Why are you bringing kids into this now, Mom?” Rümeysa asked as her cheeks reddened.

“What? I’m just putting it out there for someone to hear about it if it hadn’t come to their mind yet,” she said, feigning ignorance. “You have dragged this thing out long enough when you could have been together before we came here, and you even risked being separated because of your draggy nature, so someone has to make it obvious.”

“We are not there yet, plus we will only think about that after we are married,” Rümeysa said as she felt her face burn from having to hear that from her mother in front of her son, but she still made it clear what their consensus was. Although she didn’t follow Islamic practices one-to-one, she still believed herself to be one and tried to follow as many of them as possible.

“Looks like there is going to be a wedding soon,” Güldane said, looking at Fatih as she pinched his cheeks, which were full of food.

“Do you have the contact information for Seraphina’s parents that I asked you to gather?” Rümeysa asked, changing the topic back to Fatih, not wanting their relationship to continue being the center of attention for today, at least not in front of him.

“Yes, she gave them to me along with her address. I will give them to you after dinner; I have it written down in a notebook,” Fatih answered, following her lead despite knowing why she was doing it. At the same time, he didn’t reveal that he had all of the information memorized thanks to his sponge brain ability.

“Good, I’m looking forward to meeting your new friend,” she said with a smile, happy that Fatih had managed to make a new close friendship a few months after leaving his previous friends back home.

“So, any specific plan for what they are going to do?” Güldane asked, interjecting, wanting to know what they were going to do during the meetup between Fatih’s family and Seraphina’s.

“I’m planning to discuss it during our conversations.”

With that, the back-and-forth conversation continued within the harmonious family, with both Burak and Rümeysa feeling a bit lighter after they had addressed most of the matters that needed to be addressed.

……..

“I apologize for that; I didn’t know about it,” Brunhilde said apologetically, having just learned about Fatih’s father’s death after she had asked if he was not coming today as she welcomed Fatih and Rümeysa at the door.

“It is fine, no need to apologize,” Rümeysa said as she shook hands with her, a smile never leaving her face.

“My condolences,” Brunhilde said, a half-smile on her face, feeling bad despite knowing it wasn’t something she should feel.

“Although it has been over ten years, thank you,” she said.

“Please come inside, sorry for keeping you standing,” Brunhilde said as she moved aside, welcoming both of them into the house. Seraphina was hugging and hiding behind her father, who was waiting for them in the entrance corridor, due to the addition of someone she didn’t know.

“Okay, greet her. She is Fatih’s mother,” Brunhilde said as she gently brought Seraphina, who was playing with her fingers while looking down, in front of Rümeysa, who had squatted to her eye level with a smile on her face.

“…Hi,” she said, slowly gathering the courage to greet and look at her, as she was Fatih’s mother.

After the short and mixed back-and-forth greetings between the two families, they finally moved to the dining room to have the lunch they had prepared. Once that was over, they sent the kids to go and play, allowing themselves to have a conversation and get to know each other better.

“I watched Fatih’s videos; they are quite impressive. He is very talented,” Henry said, starting the conversation with a compliment for Rümeysa’s son but also something he believed to be true, as he had accidentally found himself watching all of the videos on the channel and seeing just how talented Fatih was. “Is there someone with a racing history in your family?” he added, asking about it as he didn’t see anything regarding that in Fatih’s videos, making him wonder.

“Nothing that I’m aware of. He just showed interest since he was a child, and the interest continued increasing until I bought him a second-hand kart, thinking it was just a phase. When he showed he was still interested after a few months, I took him to an academy to receive professional training, and from there on, the rest is history, as it turned out he was very talented,” Rümeysa answered, giving them a condensed story of how things unfolded.

“Wow, how blessed he is. Many parents would have just ignored it,” Brunhilde said.

“You have come to the right place. Here, his chances will be much better at moving up to the top ladders. It has been quite a while since he came here, and from Sera, I heard that he was competing. I wonder how his international career is going?” Henry, as a motorsport fan and someone not good at having conversations with new people, had decided to focus on Fatih in the aspect of motorsports, knowing that it was a topic he could hold long conversations on without the awkward silence that usually happens when he talks with someone he has nothing in common with.

“Ah, that is not yet posted on his channel, but it went quite well, as he won all three of the competitions he participated in for this year’s scheduled calendar. The video should be up in a few weeks at most, as we are still going through some licensing negotiations with the final competition’s organizers,” Rümeysa answered happily, as it was a matter of bragging about her son, which she saw no problem with.

“But what competitions were they, considering he had to go to Italy for them?”

“Ah, it was the FIA…”

As she answered one question after another, the impression Henry and Brunhilde had of Fatih kept getting better and better. Although it might sound like a praise tour for Fatih, it only looked like one, but wasn’t actually one, due to most of the things they talked about being things that could be proven by data.

But after talking about Fatih for some time, Rümeysa finally found an opening to ask about Seraphina. “Your daughter is quite beautiful, but Fatih says she is very shy,” she said, bringing the topic to Seraphina without asking a direct question, in order to give them the freedom to choose to indulge her or change the topic by just agreeing and opening a new one without making the situation awkward if it was something they didn’t want to talk about.