“Is he better at fighting now?” she asked.
“Getting there,” I smiled.
She set the phone face down on the wooden table and picked her pencil back up.
But before she looked back at her math worksheet, she looked up at me one more time.
Her dark eyes searched my face for absolute honesty.
“Are you the best fighter, Mom?” she asked. “Like, actually?”
I went back to the counter, portioned the warm food onto two ceramic plates, and carried them over to the table.
I sat down in the wooden chair directly across from her.
I looked at my daughter.
I looked at her father’s eyes shining back at me, filled with that beautiful, particular quality of seriousness.
I looked at the pencil still gripped tightly in her small hand.
I thought about the hospital hallway six years ago.
I thought about the quiet, invisible mornings in the gym.
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“No,” I said, reaching across the table to tap her math paper.
“I’m just trying to be the best mom.”
I smiled.
“That’s the only one I care about.”
Maya accepted this truth immediately.
She picked up her fork, entirely satisfied with the answer.
Outside our window, the evening was settling into the quiet neighborhood in the unhurried, peaceful way that evenings do.
And miles away, in the dark supply closet at Apex Combat Center, the old faded gray uniform was sitting exactly where I had left it.
It was folded neatly on the second shelf, resting quietly next to the mop I had carried every morning for six years.
I had carried it through a gym full of people who had never thought to look twice.
And I had never needed them to.
THE END
