The day following the brawl, Rof found his father cooking eggs. It was an unusual sight. The elderly man had not been in the kitchen for months, his shaking hands making it impossible. The last time he tried, he dropped the pan, staring at the mess on the floor as if he was disappointed in his own hands. Rof had quietly cleaned it up, never speaking of it again.
But that morning was different. Rof awoke to the aroma of eggs and charred toast. His father was standing by the stove, his back upright, more than it had been in a long time. Almost as if he was trying to portray an image of wellness.
Rof observed in silence as his father served him breakfast without dropping the plate. His father then sat across from him, looking at an envelope on the table containing five thousand dollars, but not touching it.
"You fought," his father stated.
"Yeah."
"In the underground."
"Yeah."
His father gave a slow nod of acknowledgment before picking up his fork. His hand shook only slightly. "Did you win?"
"Yeah."
Another nod, and they continued their meal in silence. The neighborhood outside was bustling with children, car engines, and faint music from a nearby house. Inside their trailer, it was so quiet that they could hear each other breathe.
Halfway through the meal, his father mentioned Rof's mother. "Your mother used to say you had a gift."
Rof paused.
"She said it the week before she left." His father's voice didn't waver. He had long since run out of the energy to express sorrow. "Said you were going to be something that didn't have a name yet. I thought she was just rambling. Women tend to do that when they're about to leave. It fills the silence."
"Pa"
"I'm not sad." The old man assured. "I'm just reminiscing. There's a difference." He glanced at the envelope. "Five thousand won't last three months."
"I know."
"You're going back."
"Yeah."
His father put his fork down, looking at his son earnestly, the way old men do when they realize time is not on their side. "Rof. The cross."
Rof looked down. He'd slept in his clothes. The chain was there, outside his shirt. The small silver cross his father had given him at fourteen. He didn't always wear it. But last night, coming home, he'd put it on without thinking.
"Don't take it off before you fight," his father urged. "Promise me."
Rof looked up. His father's eyes were steady. The seriousness in his gaze was more profound than mere concern.
"It's just metal, Pa."
"Everything's just something," his father said. "Promise me anyway."
"...Yeah. Okay."
His father picked up his fork again, ending the conversation. That was his way – he said the important things once, then let them be. He'd learned that somewhere. Perhaps in church, or maybe it was a survival skill, knowing that repeating yourself was a waste of breath. They finished their eggs in silence.
A knock came at eleven.
Rof was in the driveway doing push-ups on the cracked concrete, trying to determine whether his ribs were broken or just bruised. They were bruised, he concluded. Broken ribs wouldn't allow him to breathe properly.
He stood up when he heard the car. An old blue sedan pulled up, one headlight slightly askew. A large man got out. Not muscular like Tank, but a man who used to be strong and still had the frame to show for it. Broad-shouldered, slow in his movements, with short grey stubble. He wore a clean shirt. He seemed to handle himself with care.
Upon seeing Rof, he stopped.
"Are you Leon's son?" he asked. His voice was calm and even, like a river that had stopped rushing a long time ago.
"Depends who's asking," replied Rof.
The man gave a small smile. "I'm Marcus. Your father and I worked at the same factory line, back before my back gave out. Haven't seen him in a long time. Heard he was unwell." He held up a plastic container. "My wife made soup. Too much of it. We always make too much."
Rof looked at the container, then at Marcus. The man stood there calmly under his scrutiny. He didn't seem nervous. That was a sign of someone with nothing to hide – they didn't fidget when being observed.
"Come in," Rof offered.
His father's face changed slightly when Marcus walked through the door. It wasn't quite a smile. More like the sudden opening of a door in an old building that hadn't been used in years, surprised that the hinges still worked.
"Marcus Cole," his father greeted, from his chair.
"Samuel Leon," Marcus responded.
They shook hands, holding on slightly longer than usual. The kind of handshake that signifies mutual memories from a shared past.
Rof stayed by the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, watching. Marcus sat across from his father and placed the soup on the table. They began talking – not hurriedly or loudly, but with slow, careful words. They spoke of their time at the factory line, the old church men's group on Wednesday nights, and how Philadelphia used to feel like a city where everyone knew at least three people in common. How that feeling was now lost.
"My son Gideon keeps asking me about those Wednesday nights," Marcus mentioned at one point. "Says he wants to go back to church. I don't know where that came from. He's seventeen. You don't go back to church at seventeen, you run from it." He chuckled a little, confused and pleased at the same time. "The kid's odd. Good odd, but odd."
Rof's father laughed in response. It was a genuine, albeit quiet, laugh. The first Rof had heard from him in weeks.
Rof shifted in the doorway, his hand instinctively moving to the cross at his chest. He held it, not dramatically or intentionally, just the way people do when their mind is quiet. The way the body reaches for something solid.
The two old men continued their conversation. Rof stood there in the doorway, hand on the cross, watching his father come alive in a way he hadn't in months. It was as if reminiscing about the past made it feel less distant.
He didn't think anything important was happening.
He was wrong.
But that's how significant events always begin.
Marcus left an hour later. At the door, he shook Rof's hand. His grip was strong, his gaze direct.
"Your father talks about you," Marcus said. "Always did, even when you were small. Said you had something nobody could teach." He released the handshake. "Take care of him."
"That's the plan," Rof replied.
Marcus gave a nod, walked back to the blue sedan, got in, and drove away without a backward glance, the way men do when they've said all they came to say.
Rof went inside and looked at his father. The old man was already asleep in the chair, his hand still resting near the soup container. His breathing was easier than it had been the day before. Not better, just easier, as if the visit had given him temporary respite from his illness.
Rof sat on the floor again, leaning against the wall. He pulled out the cross from under his shirt and examined it. It was small and simple. He wasn't always sure what he believed in, but he did say prayers sometimes. Short and direct ones, like speaking to someone who already knew the situation and didn't need a lengthy explanation.
Keep him alive, he prayed. Just keep him alive long enough.
He put the cross back, closed his eyes, and tried to do the thing.
This was the part nobody saw. Rof had been trying all morning. Not during his push-ups in the driveway, but even before that. At 5 AM, standing in the dark kitchen, throwing slow punches at the air, trying to bring back the sensation he'd felt when Tank threw that hook.
Nothing.
It was like trying to remember a word that had slipped his mind. The feeling had been there – he was sure of it, having experienced it for a few seconds in the ring – but trying to grasp it now felt as elusive as trying to hold smoke. The more he reached for it, the more it eluded him.
He tried again, eyes closed, back against the wall. He threw a slow punch at the air. Nothing extraordinary, just a hand moving through emptiness. No clicking sensation, no shattering, no world breaking into fragments.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
He opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling, the doctor's words echoing in his mind: Don't tell anyone about the speed. Not yet. They'll drain you faster if they know.
That meant the doctor knew what it was. Or at least knew it wasn't random. Which meant it had a pattern. Which meant there was a reason it worked in the ring and not here.
Rof wasn't an intellectual. He knew that. He had never excelled at school or reading people or anything except understanding a fight in progress. He got by on instinct, resilience, and a face that induced uncertainty in people.
But he understood this:
He couldn't think his way to the speed. Thinking was the wrong approach. The speed came when he stopped. When Tank's punch was imminent, and Rof's body ran out of options, and his mind just let go – that was the moment. Not when he was trying, but when he stopped trying and let whatever was inside him do what it was meant to do.
This realization scared him more than the tournament ever did. Because the tournament was an external challenge. This was internal. And Rof Leon had never trusted what was inside him. He'd spent twenty-four years suppressing it, keeping it quiet, not probing the feelings he experienced in the dark or the fragmented memories – a white room, a cold table, someone telling him to count backward from ten, promising it wouldn't hurt.
He blinked, sitting up straight. Where did that come from? He tried to hold onto the image, the white room, the voice, but it was already fading, like an attempt to grasp fog.
He pressed his palm flat against the floor, grounding himself in reality. Here. In the trailer. The sound of his father's breathing. The cooling soup on the table.
He pulled out Vera's card. It only had a number. Nothing else.
He didn't make the call.
Not yet.
Instead, he picked up the soup container and put it in the refrigerator, knowing his father would want it for dinner and might forget to refrigerate it himself.
He turned off the kitchen light. He went and sat next to his father's chair, on the floor, and stayed there. Just in case the old man needed something during the night. Just in case.
Three days, Vera had said. Silas was waiting.
And somewhere in the back of Rof Leon's mind, behind everything he couldn't remember and everything he couldn't control, something that had been dormant since his childhood stirred in the darkness – and almost awakened. Almost.