“Totally a sixteen-year-old boy. His mom tells him she’s got a new man, he’s worried about what he’s gonna eat.”

That made me smile and settled other things inside me.

Mickey kept talking, “But you don’t have a grill.”

“Slow roasted barbeque pulled chicken,” I told him.

“Shit, it’s after ten and now I’m hungry.”

And another smile.

“You goin’ to bed?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Wish that was happening beside me,” he muttered.

And with that, everything settled inside me.

“Me too,” I told him quietly.

“Monday,” he said.

That seemed a long way away.

“Monday,” I agreed.

“Right, Amy. Lettin’ you go. Sleep good, baby.”

“You too, Mickey. ’Night.”

“’Night.”

We rang off and I got ready for bed.

Once in it, I tossed and turned and didn’t sleep.

I wanted to believe that the fierceness coming from my son was a protective instinct for me. I would even like to know if Mickey was right about Auden looking at his father and wondering if he’d become that man.

But I didn’t think it was either.

I thought it was something else.

Something that drove both my kids from their father to me.

Something I was going to have to find a way to figure out.

For them.

Not me.

* * * * *

“I’m not liking this,” I said two days later, standing in Jake’s office at the gym, watching through the window, Jake and Mickey in the ring sparring.

“I know,” Josie, standing next to me replied. “Actually, I don’t know. Jake never loses. To anyone. Even Mickey, who’s quite formidable, but still, he’s only second best in the league. Jake was once a professional boxer so you shouldn’t feel any less of Mickey. Jake fought pay-per-view. He was quite something. Thus, I can’t say I know how it feels that Mickey’s losing.”

I couldn’t even think of Mickey losing. And I didn’t suspect anyone was losing since they were only sparring with a throng of young men from age eleven to eighteen standing around watching.

The junior boxing league signups and gear handouts. The reason I was there. So I could watch the boys get fitted for the gear that I’d made it so they could have for their season.

No, I was thinking that I hated the idea that Mickey boxed. I could barely watch my son roll around on a mat struggling to pin his opponent.

I hated watching Jake punch Mickey even if Mickey was punching back.

I’d hate it more if they were doing it to win.

But what I hated most of all was the heretofore unknown knowledge that Mickey was a member of the adult league which, like the junior league, was again starting its season.

Now, how exactly was Mickey going to do all he did and train to box and actually box?