In November, Blake competed at a regional invitational in Pittsburgh. Grant drove him there before dawn. The highway was slick with the season’s first freezing rain. They shared a gas-station breakfast of egg sandwiches and black coffee, the same ritual they had followed since Blake was eight.
Blake won his first match by a clear decision. In the second, he received a warning for continuing after the referee called stop. The official was strict, and Blake believed his opponent had provoked him by grabbing at his sleeve. He lost on points by a narrow margin and came off the mat furious.
Grant met him by the water cooler. “You heard the stop command.”
“He was holding me.”
“The referee had called it.”
“Dad, you always take their side when I lose.”
Grant was exhausted. He had missed a loan payment the week before and spent an hour on the phone with a supplier who would no longer extend credit for equipment. He looked at his son and saw another problem he could not afford to fail.
“I’m trying to keep you from ruining a future you’ve worked for,” he said.
Blake threw his towel into his bag. “Maybe I wouldn’t be so afraid of ruining it if you could just be proud of me when I don’t win.”
The words struck Grant with more force than the match. He started to answer, but Blake was already walking toward the locker room. In the car home they listened to the radio and discussed the weather. Grant did not know how to reopen the subject without surrendering his authority, and Blake did not know how to ask for affection without sounding weak.
At home, Grant’s wife, Clara, heard the story from her son. She was forty-eight and worked in medical billing at the county hospital. She loved Grant, but after twenty years of managing their household finances she no longer accepted that every difficulty could be solved by working harder and talking louder.
“You need to listen to him,” she said as she sorted laundry.
“I did listen. He ignored a stop signal.”
“I’m not talking about the match.”
Grant sat on the edge of the bed. Clara set down a towel and showed him the latest statement from the credit union. A payment was overdue. The account had enough to cover groceries and utilities, but there would be nothing left for the academy’s equipment lender unless a new student enrollment campaign succeeded.
“You told me we’d be caught up by December,” she said.
“The winter drive will help.”
“You said that about the summer clinic.”
“Do you want me to close?”
“I want us to know how much longer we can keep this going without hurting the family.”
Grant looked at the account. He had spent half his life building an academy that carried his name. Closing it seemed less like a business decision than an admission that the person he thought he was no longer existed.
“I need one good event,” he said.
Clara frowned. “What event?”
“Something that shows people we’re not the villains in that stupid video.”
She sat beside him. “The boy in the video is sixteen. Don’t turn him into your marketing plan.”
Her warning remained in the room after she went downstairs.
