Page 133 of Coach
“It’s worth it,” she declared, walking away. “You’re holding the wood wrong,” she told her older brother before sauntering off.
He was, too.
But instead of being pissed at his little sister for being right, he just sighed and readjusted his hold.
“Whose genius idea was it to let him build his own desk?” I asked.
“Yours,” Saul reminded me.
“Yeah, well, what the heck are you doing listening to me?” I asked, my whole body tensing as our son finally made his cut.
“See? All good. Was your grandfather this much of a worrier when he was teaching you?”
“He was a stickler about my hair being up and my clothes not being too loose. Other than that, though, no. He once said that if I cut off my finger, he’d just stick it on ice until the doctors could reattach it.”
“I’m not gonna cut off my finger, Ma,” our son said, rolling his eyes a bit as he took his desk top off the table. “I’m going to sand this outside.”
We both turned, watching him head up the steps his sister had just ascended, leaving the both of us alone in the workshop slash craft room.
Not all our kids were into woodworking. But they all had their own little hobbies that required storage space and areas to work on them without worrying about making a mess.
The basement that had once served as my prison was now a space we all enjoyed as a family.
“I know. I know,” I said when Saul glanced over at me. “I’m being a helicopter.”
“Nah. You did good. I saw you pull yourself back three times.”
We tried, as a whole, to allow our kids to explore and make mistakes, not always try to correct them. It was how I’d been raised, and it never occurred to me how valuable that had been. Or how difficult it would be to do with my own children. I was in a constant battle with myself to just step back and observe, waiting to offer them guidance only if they asked for it.
Mindfulness was a constant practice. Luckily, I had Saul to keep reminding me to stay grounded and present.
“They don’t make it easy, do they?”
“No. But that’s what makes it all worth it. I gotta go pick up the little two from karate. You wanna take a walk?”
“Always.”
Shady Valley had changed a bit through the years. Storefronts that had once been abandoned now featured sweet little mom-and-pop shops that brought a lot of richness back into the community.
Sure, development meant there were also a lot more people than there used to be. But Shady Valley was still the small town I’d fallen in love with, and fallen in love in, many years before.
“Uh oh,” I said as we walked past the pool hall and I noticed a brick had fallen out of the step.
“Don’t suppose you’d be interested in fixing it,” Konstantin said, shooting me a knowing smirk.
“Sure. For a small fee of four hundred thousand dollars.”
Miracle of all miracles, I actually got a little laugh out of the usually so controlled Bratva boss.
“You’ll forgive me for getting some other quotes.”
I wouldn’t claim to befriendswith the Novikoff family. But I understood the balance between the criminal empires in the city.
And, well, our kids went to school together. So we had to be friendly, no matter our pasts.
“Picking up your kids too?” Konstantin asked as the front door to the karate studio opened and people started to spill out.
“Yeah,” we agreed, crossing the street to meet ours. Konstantin waited on the other side, waiting for his kids to cross safely.
