“The whole thing?” Tabitha asked, looking impressed.

“Yes.”

“So when you say block party, you mean—”

“The whole fucking neighborhood partied till dawn,” Eddie said, clapping his hands together.

“And there was the cutest little parade down Passyunk Ave,” Alice said.

Tabitha cocked her head. “You don’t seem like the parade kind of guy, Mr. Machine.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I didn’t want it. Felt too…” I mulled over the right word. “Flashy.”

But then Midge nudged me with her elbow and a look of maternal scrutiny. I rubbed a hand along my jaw before finally relenting. “Okay. I’ll admit it. It was one of the best nights of my life. Because people that I cared about showed up for me. People who knew how hard I’d trained. How hard and brutal boxing can be. It was important. And I was grateful in the end.”

Tabitha peered over her camera at me. I cleared my throat again, suddenly nervous. I realized how easy it was to share something so intimate with her, even if she was recording it.

“We’re as proud of our son now as we were then,” Midge chimed in. “His life’s passion could be watching paint dry and I’d tell everyone I knew about it. It never mattered to us one way or another if he won or not. That night though, walking down Passyunk next to him, with cars honking and people cheering his name, well, that is a feeling I’ll never forget.” Then her hands flew to her cheeks. “Did I say that to the whole internet?”

Tabitha laughed. “Don’t worry, this isn’t live. I won’t add it in if you don’t want me to.”

“I want you to,” Midge said firmly. “Though maybe it has nothing to do with building a park, right?”

Tabitha had dropped to her knees, digging around in a black camera bag. She was doing her best to hide her face. I didn’t think anyone else noticed that she’d swiped a tear from under her eye.

I did.

She sniffed. Brushed the hair from her forehead and then stood. Her smile was cranked all the way up. It seemed forced to me.

With a twist, she removed her camera from the tripod and held it up. “If the three of you scoot together, I can take your picture.”

My parents hugged me close—Mom on my left, Midge on my right. We’d posed like this for pictures my entire life. A similar image hung in their house from my adoption day, when I was only a few months old.