“He told me I was responsible for you.”
Nia smiled.
“You’re doing a bad job.”
“Clearly.”
They sat in the truck.
Snow tapped the windshield.
Nia finally asked:
“Are you going back?”
Jordan looked toward Northstar.
“I don’t know.”
Thomas Keane called that evening.
Jordan let it ring twice.
Then answered.
“Yes?”
“I owe you an apology.”
Jordan said nothing.
“I should not have told Derek about your father.”
“No.”
“I was angry.”
“That’s what Dad always told people not to do.”
Thomas sighed.
“Which proves he taught you better than me.”
Jordan almost smiled.
Almost.
“What did he do for you?”
Thomas went quiet.
“You want the short version?”
“No.”
Thomas paused.
“Then come by tomorrow morning.”
Jordan looked at the clock.
“Before classes.”
“Nine.”
Jordan should have said no.
Instead:
“Okay.”
Northstar was empty Sunday morning.
No music.
No students.
Thomas had coffee waiting in the office.
Jordan sat across from him.
On the wall behind Thomas hung photographs.
One caught Jordan’s attention.
Old.
Faded.
Two young men standing beside a tournament ring.
One was unmistakably Leon.
Twenty-something.
Lean.
Smiling.
Beside him stood Thomas Keane with dark hair and an expression Jordan barely recognized.
Jordan stood.
“You kept this?”
“Thirty-one years.”
Thomas handed him the frame.
“1995.”
“Lexington.”
“Your dad beat me.”
Jordan looked over.
“In a tournament?”
Thomas smiled.
“In about forty seconds.”
Jordan laughed once.
Thomas continued.
“I hated him.”
“Dad?”
“For six months.”
“Why?”
“Because I was twenty-seven and stupid.”
“You were twenty-seven in that?”
“Hard living.”
Jordan smiled.
Thomas’s expression grew serious.
“I had talent.”
“Won tournaments.”
“Thought that meant I understood martial arts.”
“I drank too much.”
“Fought outside bars.”
“Got arrested twice.”
“My coach threatened to throw me out.”
“Then I fought your father.”
Jordan sat.
“What happened?”
“I tried to hurt him.”
“Tournament rules?”
“I ignored them.”
Thomas touched his jaw.
“Leon could have knocked me unconscious.”
“He didn’t.”
“He swept me.”
Controlled me.”
“Made me look helpless.”
Jordan listened.
“Afterward I confronted him in the parking lot.”
Thomas laughed bitterly.
“Very dignified.”
“What did Dad do?”
“Bought me breakfast.”
Jordan stared.
“What?”
“I was screaming at him.”
“He asked whether I had eaten.”
“That sounds like Dad.”
“Then he sat in a Waffle House with me for two hours.”
Thomas looked toward the photograph.
“I told him things I had not told anybody.”
“My father was an alcoholic.”
“My mother had died.”
“I was turning into him.”
“Leon didn’t fix me.”
“He didn’t pretend he could.”
“He gave me the number of a counselor.”
“Called me three days later.”
“Then again.”
“When I stopped drinking, he called every week for six months.”
Jordan looked down.
Thomas continued.
“Years later, when I opened Northstar, your father came up for the first seminar.”
“He taught here.”
“Free.”
“Wouldn’t take money.”
“He said I could pay him by teaching somebody else the same way someday.”
Jordan’s throat tightened.
“Why didn’t he ever tell me?”
“Because it wasn’t about him.”
Thomas smiled sadly.
“That was Leon.”
Jordan looked at the old photo again.
Thomas continued.
“When I heard he was sick, I called.”
“He told me not to come.”
“That sounds like him too.”
“He said his family had enough people grieving in the room.”
Jordan laughed through pain.
Thomas’s eyes watered.
“He asked me one thing.”
Jordan looked up.
“What?”
“If I ever crossed paths with you or Nia, don’t treat you like relics.”
“Don’t tell you what your father would want.”
“Don’t make you responsible for his memory.”
Jordan swallowed.
Thomas looked ashamed.
“Yesterday I did exactly that.”
Jordan stared at the photograph.
“Why did he call you?”
“He said Columbus was a possibility.”
“Your mother had applied for the hospital position.”
“He thought if you moved here…”
Thomas shrugged.
“He liked knowing somebody was around.”
Jordan looked toward the mat.
“He never said.”
“No.”
Thomas leaned back.
“You quit training.”
“Yes.”
“Because you hate it?”
Jordan took a long time.
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because everything about it is him.”
Thomas nodded.
“Reasonable.”
“I don’t need therapy from a karate coach.”
Thomas smiled.
“Good.”
“I’m bad at therapy.”
Silence.
Jordan looked at the empty mat again.
Thomas said:
“You’re welcome here.”
Jordan shook his head.
“Derek doesn’t want me here.”
“This is not Derek’s gym.”
“He acts like it.”
Thomas did not defend him.
Jordan noticed.
“Why do you let him?”
Thomas looked toward the door.
“Because he’s talented.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“No.”
“Because his family helped keep this place open during COVID.”
Jordan waited.
“His father gave us money.”
“There it is.”
Thomas nodded.
“There it is.”
“You owe them.”
“I thought I did.”
“And now?”
Thomas looked old for the first time.
“Now I think I confused gratitude with permission.”
Jordan understood that.
Thomas continued.
“Derek was fourteen when he came here.”
“Angry kid.”
“His father demanded excellence.”
“Nothing was enough.”
“Second place was failure.”
“Derek found something he was good at.”
“I protected that.”
“Maybe too much.”
“He became champion.”
“Brought attention.”
“Students.”
“Sponsors.”
“And every year I told myself character would catch up with skill.”
Jordan looked at him.
“It hasn’t.”
“No.”
Thomas rubbed his hands.
“I should’ve corrected it sooner.”
“Why now?”
Thomas looked toward the mat.
“Because I watched Noah flinch before Derek even moved.”
That answer mattered.
Jordan stood.
“I need to go.”
Thomas nodded.
At the door Jordan stopped.
“Can I have a copy?”
“Of what?”
He pointed toward the old photograph.
Thomas smiled.
“I’ll make one.”
Jordan left.
That afternoon, he opened the storage unit with Angela.
Box after box.
Kitchen things.
Old uniforms.
Leon’s books.
Training pads.
Photographs.
Finally:
HALE DOJO.
Jordan opened it.
His father’s smell was gone.
That hurt unexpectedly.
Inside lay folded gis.
Belts.
Tournament programs.
A black notebook.
And an envelope.
JORDAN.
Leon’s handwriting.
Jordan froze.
Angela covered her mouth.
“I forgot.”
Jordan picked it up.
He wanted to be angry.
Could not.
His hands shook.
“Open it.”
Angela whispered.
Jordan did.
The letter was short.
Jordan,