Chapter 8 - I Like This Better
Months later, Reese returned to Selah’s backyard for a smaller gathering.
No black sparring mat.
No performance.
No Briggs.
Just grilled chicken, kids, Harlan by the cooler, and Selah moving through her own yard like someone relearning how to occupy space.
Reese brought strawberries.
Harlan looked at the bowl and said, “Brave fruit.”
She gave him a look.
He raised both hands.
“Too soon?”
“Always.”
Selah approached with two drinks.
“Thank you for coming.”
Reese nodded.
“Thank you for not putting a mat out.”
Selah winced.
“Never again.”
Lily ran across the yard with Selah’s daughter, both girls laughing under the American flag near the porch.
Harlan stood beside Reese.
“You okay?”
She watched Lily.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
He smiled faintly.
“Fair.”
She looked at him.
“Do you miss it?”
He knew what she meant.
The old work.
The team.
The clarity.
The terrible simplicity of danger that did not disguise itself as barbecue laughter.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Then my knee hurts, and I remember I enjoy chairs.”
She smiled.
A real one.
Brief.
But real.
“You?”
Reese watched her daughter chase bubbles through sunlight.
“I miss being understood without explaining.”
Harlan nodded.
“That one stays.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
She looked around the yard.
At Selah laughing with another mother.
At guests who now asked before filming.
At children running freely.
May you like
At a blue cooler that no longer marked the place where a beer bottle fell in recognition.
“But I like this better.”
