Turning around to look behind her, Grace was surprised to see an entirely new second level to the warehouse. It jutted out from the middle of the wall, connected to the new carpeting by a narrow flight of stairs. From the bottom floor, she could just make out the tops of white and yellow hardhats as the contractors stepped around the new floor. From the frequency of their movements, she assumed they were securing the carpeting in place. Before she could be entirely certain, a familiar face approached her from behind a forklift towing a load of pale tiles.
Her father’s round face looked partially flushed—she wondered how many contractors he’d been stern with today—but well-rested otherwise. His smile pulled his cheeks up, deepening the wrinkles that branched out from his eyes and extended down from the sides of his nose.
Grace couldn’t help but smile when she noticed that his hair, in this lighting, looked more like his natural, red-brown color than the grey that had begun to sprinkle around his temples and throughout his facial hair. Although he kept it closely-trimmed, the silver flecks of hair stood out against the near mahogany shade.
“Grace,” he smiled, his arms widening to pull her into a hug. The tight sleeves of his jacket pulled open when his arms flew out to either side of him, exposing the small sweat spots that had formed in his armpits. As he neared, Grace made out a soft sheen of sweat along his forehead and if she wasn’t mistaken, his skin looked a shade darker than normal. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Peter said as he turned to the side, leaving one of his arms draped around her shoulders.
“Hey, Dad,” Grace said, trying to ignore the swirl of guilt that worked through her like a toxin. She felt a soft burning throughout her arms, shaming herself for considering that her father wasn’t working as hard as he was. It was easy to be skeptical of his ideas at times—he didn’t have a natural ability for planning, and a lot of the time, his ideas seemed far-fetched and overly-idealistic. “It’s good to see you,” she said, returning his hug with a brief, tight squeeze from both of her arms. Wrapping an arm around her father, Grace leaned into him as she looked around the new gym with refreshed curiosity now that she was standing with her father.
“So, what do you think?” he asked, stepping forward and beckoning her to join him at the edge of the plastic mats that lined a large boxing ring. In all of her amazement at the warehouse’s startling new appearance, Grace had hardly even noticed the raised platform in the center of the room despite its enormous size. As she and her father walked closer to the ring, she could make out the plasticky, almost leather scent that came off the elastic cords. The sharpness to the smell reminded her of vinegar.
Grace fought to keep her nose from scrunching up, deciding to take a deep inhale to desensitize herself to its presence. She shut her eyes as she breathed in, the scent reminding her of a time from her childhood that she associated with the plasticky smell in the air around her. She was sitting on a bench, coloring a picture of a cartoon dog with a set of crayons. Up on a platform in front of her, a much-younger Peter Walsh was sparring with another gym-goer, strapped into a pair of red boxing gloves. They were up around his face as—in precise, fluid motions—he bobbed and weaved out of the way of the other man’s hands. Just as quickly as the memory appeared in Grace’s mind, it was gone. She opened her eyes. In the center of the boxing ring, a large decal of the Walsh family crest had been printed on the floor of the boxing ring. Unsure of what to make of the new gym as she waded through a sea of memories in her mind, Grace stalled as she tried to come up with a diplomatic way to phrase how she was feeling. “Well,” she took another look around the large space as a pair of contractors began rolling in sets of heavy-duty bleachers. With the newly-installed carpeting, the metal seats rolled over the floor easily, sliding into place along the far wall of the gym. It lined up with the boxing ring expertly. “I didn’t expect it to look this good, I’ll admit it.”
Her father, to Grace’s intense relief, laughed at her comment. “You know, I was just thinking that earlier this morning.” He pulled on a strand of her dark hair lightly, smiling as the tight ringlet bounced back up into place. It tickled at Grace’s chin. His attention turned back to the gym, to his current project, and she watched as a bright sense of pride pulled at her father’s features. He tucked his lips into a tight smile, nodding at his work as he rested his hands on his hips. Grace smiled as she watched her father do this, recognizing the pose from his countless wins from his boxing career during his youth and from each of his kids’ graduations and various achievements over the years—he took a deep breath in that lifted his chest. For a moment, he looked just as he had in Grace’s memory.
Grace crossed her arms over herself, shooting her father a skeptical look as she shifted her weight to her right leg. “I’m still not entirely sure why you wanted to open up a gym,” Grace confessed, wanting to avoid her father’s gaze. Even as an adult, it felt wrong to question her father, especially about business-related matters—he obviously knew how to play this game a lot better than she did. She couldn’t help it though, this compulsive urge to worry about him and try to look out for the things he might overlook in all of his excitement—and when she thought
about that compulsive urge directly and questioned where it came from, she thought about her mother. She never let her thoughts linger there for long, finding the impossibility of knowing if she was really anything like her mother devastating on her worst days. “I just assumed you never wanted to.”
She tried to talk around her father’s injury—a torn rotator cuff that had clipped his sparkling career short even after all the physical therapy and rest—but there was a flash of grief on his face when he comprehended her words. It was quick, so quick she would’ve missed it if she hadn’t been looking, and completely pure. Instead of masking it as he’d done so many times before, Peter swallowed the lump in his throat and smiled sadly. He nodded, showing he understood, but his next words avoided the subject of his old career. Grace felt another pang of guilt sound in her stomach like the ring of a gong. “It’ll work well for the business. As I’ve always told you, the key to staying alive is to continue to evolve,” Peter spoke as he hauled himself up onto the platform with his arms, using more of his left shoulder than his right. “And that is exactly what we’re doing.”
Grace opened her mouth to ask what her father meant, but he lifted a finger as he stood up on the platform, extending a hand to help her onto the platform herself. Curious, Grace took it. Surprised by her father’s strength, she reached out with her free hand to grab one of the cords to steady her body as she moved upwards, through the air. She smiled, feeling her hair settle around her shoulders. Standing on top of the boxing ring now, Grace was able to watch as other sets of steel bleachers were wheeled into their places around the boxing ring. Although there was a sneaking suspicion inside of Grace’s stomach that whispered her father’s newest business venture in her ear, part of her still needed to hear him say it.
Her father put his hands on the top cord that wound from one of the corner posts to the other, pulling it back like he was manning a large slingshot. “The gym will function normally throughout the day: people coming in to use the machines upstairs,” he gestured to the new level above them and Grace turned to look at it. “Spin classes, one-on-one boxing instruction, all that.” Grace could tell by the tone of his voice that he was leading up to the twist, feeling a sense of excitement leak through into his words. She looked back at him, knowing he’d appreciate her attention as he unveiled his master plan. “But at night, we’ll host fighting matches.”
Grace’s brow furrowed. It wasn’t a bad idea and out of all of his more recent ventures, it was hardly the most dangerous or most illegal he’d proposed, but she couldn’t fight the urge to make sure it was airtight.
Sensing her hesitation, her father continued his explanation before she could form any argument against it. “Think about it! These types of fighting rings—the dirty, underground kind—have been huge in Europe for centuries, the ones we’ve made our living from,” he added with a wink. “People live for that kind of entertainment, whether you realize it or not, and since the general population is either heavily invested in sports or a current athlete, we’re in a prime location for this type of venture. Getting recognizable names from the body-building circle around here could pull in even more money, especially since a lot of them have a lot of followers on social media. It wouldn’t require any extra set-up, transportation or potential loss of products, and any injuries could easily be covered up as a result of sparring.”
Giving her father a narrow-eyed smile, Grace couldn’t help but lean into her natural urge to test her father. Sliding through the black cords, Grace stepped into the ring as she turned on her father. “But what if people want to gain membership to the gym?” she asked. Subconsciously, she’d hoped that her question would feel like a challenge, that he’d feel tempted to step inside of the ring with her, but he remained at the edge. His hands held onto the rope, pulling at the elastic material as he stared back at her. There was something in his eyes, something that made Grace want to stay in the ring as long as she could. As he responded to her, Grace realized what she was seeing in her father’s eyes was jealousy. Despite the severity of his injury at the time and ramifications it had had on his career, Grace knew that the only thing holding him back from getting into the ring now was his own fear. She wanted to step forward and pull him into the ring with her, but she kept her arms at her sides.
Her father smiled at her. “We’ll have the appearance of a 24-hour gym, but with separate shifts. During our core business hours, we’ll be open to the general public. We’ll have tours for onboarding members, have the general public in to exercise, and function as a regular gym. After the regular business day ends, we’ll move into an after-hours shift. During this time, we’ll only be available to our platinum members—employees, investors, and, of course, ourrealcustomers—the people who are looking to place large bets on the fights.” As he spoke, he kept his eyes trained on the mat.
“You’re not concerned about the police checking up on the gym?” Grace didn’t want to mention her run-in with Kilian directly, but hoped that the concern that lined her eyes would communicate exactly what she meant. Assaulting an officer, even someone as arrogant as Kilian Kelly, didn’t exactly set them up for success with their new business. She didn’t mean to linger on the potential pitfalls of her father’s new idea, but it was important to have someone to point out the gaps in someone else’s thinking. “I’m just concerned that Kelly might be looking for us to make just enough of a step, especially after—after, you know,” she said, hoping that her father would see the frustration that lined her brow and would take it seriously.
Frustratingly enough, her father’s attention had been pulled away from Grace’s valid concerns and onto a pallet of tile that was being moved towards the back of the warehouse, towards the bathrooms. “I’m sorry, Love,” he called as he stepped off the platform, calling out to stop the worker operating the forklift. “I have a million things on my plate right now. I’ll be back!”
Scoffing at her father’s obvious avoidant behavior, Grace stared after him. Snapping her mouth shut as she turned on the boxing ring’s floor, she placed both of her feet on top of the family’s crest. Staring down at the neat shape of gold and emerald, Grace smiled at the brilliant shades that had been used to bring life to the old family heirloom, tracing the lines of detail in the emeralds with the tip of her shoe.
She felt a light tap on the back of her shoulder, the soft padding noise that a gloved hand made against her skin. Excited by the idea of her father returning to spar with her, Grace spun on her heel. A wide smile spread across her face—he’d sparred with each of her siblings, taking the time to train them one-on-one during the early mornings before the sun had risen. It was her time now. She felt it in her blood, the adrenaline that her brothers had recalled happily over many breakfasts. His injury had kept him from training with Grace the same way he’d worked with her older siblings, often relying on the knowledge he’d passed down onto his older children when he wasn’t strong enough to do it himself. Even though she couldn’t blame him for being injured, there was a part of her that had always felt slighted by not getting to learn from him directly. She smiled then, reminding herself that her right hook clearly hadn’t suffered from having a different instructor—Kilian Kelly’s bruised-up face was a testament to that.
“What’s up, sis?” Mark asked, hopping around the ring on his toes. He was dressed for his fight tonight—wearing a pair of red-and-black shorts and a concentrated expression. He danced around her, lightly throwing punches into the space between them.
“You look nervous,” she said, noting that her usually calm brother was jumping around to release the nerves that he was feeling. Seeing another pair of gloves—happily noting their black sheen—on the floor of the ring, she picked them up, strapping her hands into them comfortably. She turned her hands over, adjusting to their slight weight.
“Those aren’t for you,” Mark laughed, holding up both of his hands to either side of his face preemptively.
“You look like you could use a warm-up,” she smiled back at her twin brother, challenging him with a grin as she held up her gloves. As Grace moved towards her brother in the ring, she spread her toes out to get a better hold. Balanced between her strong legs, Grace realized that the nervous feeling in her chest was for Mark, about his first experience in the world of underground fighting.
“Let’s go, then,” he welcomed the challenge. Despite her teasing, he was still smiling. He’d stopped bouncing, now concentrated on the slightest movements that her body was making. She was impressed to see the hard lines of determination on his face, to see the way he’d trained his eyes to trace every movement that her body presented to him. Just when she thought she would be able to move around him, he followed her movement and was able to keep the distance between them even. She cursed his longer legs. “Are you nervous about tonight?”
Mark looked at her through the space between his gloves, breaking his concentration on her for a moment. There was a widening to his eyes that told her he was surprised by her question. It disappeared in the next second, replaced by a cockiness that he’d picked up after winning a few championships in the featherweight fighting division. “Nah,” he brushed away the thought like a gnat.
He was a good fighter—there was no denying that, but the idea of Mark going toe-to-toe with someone who had no problem fighting dirty troubled her. He was used to heavy regulation in his fighting. “He’s some young bloke who got started boxing in high school and who casually referred to himself as ‘The Legacy.’” He tried not to laugh when he spoke, throwing a quick punch towards Grace’s mid-section. She dodged it, throwing one of her own. He spun out of the way. “Total pansy, I’m not worried at all,” he finished.
“Even with the money on the line?” she asked, taking a soft blow to her shoulder. She grumbled.
“Even with the money on the line,” he confirmed. “What’s with all the questions?” He threw his arms out to the side, almost like he was expressing his frustration, but he began rushing towards her.
