Page 15 of Until the Storm Breaks
He throws a testing combination. I slip it, counter with my own. We’re feeling each other out, remembering rhythms. He’s faster than he used to be, more aggressive. But I’ve got reach and I know his tells, the way his right shoulder dips before he throws his cross.
“MMA would crush boxing in any real fight,” he says, pressing forward with heavy shots.
“Maybe.” I pivot, catch him with a clean hook to the body. “But in a boxing ring, I’d mop the floor with you.”
We trade combinations, neither of us really trying to hurt the other. This is just how we talk. Through movement, through controlled violence. It’s easier than actual words. Than feelings.
The round ends with both of us breathing hard, a fresh bruise blooming on my ribs where he caught me with a solid right. No winner. Just more history written on our bodies.
“Still got those reflexes, I see,” Dominic says, grinning.
“Yeah, well, grading freshman essays is surprisingly good training for dodging punches. Both involve a lot of painful repetition.”
We grab water, cooling down. After a moment, Dominic drops his voice. “Theo told me you were talking about doing a bit of work on the house while you’re in town before the sale. You don’t need to, Cal. And you fixing the house now won’t change the fact that you weren’t here.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” He tosses his towel into the hamper. “Because it sounds like you might be trying to make up for lost time.”
I don’t respond. Can’t. Because he’s right, and we both know it. We need to sell. I need this done, need to get back to Seattle where I don’t have to look at Mom’s crossword puzzles or smell her lavender hand cream. Where I can pretend the last few years didn’t happen the way they did.
Later in the day, ignoring Dominic’s warning, I look for my old toolbox in the shed behind the garage. I finally find it, buried under a tarp and what looks like a decade of spider webs. My name’s still etched into the metal—CALVIN M.—in my terrible high school handwriting. Inside, everything’s a bit rusted but functional. Hammer, wrenches, a level with a cracked bubble, the tape measure I bought with my first paycheck from Hanson’s Hardware.
Mom never threw it away. Of course she didn’t. She probably thought I’d come back for it someday, pick up where I left off.
My hands remember the weight of these tools. Summers home from college, when I wasn’t at the bar, I worked construction with Dad’s friend. Learning to frame walls, read blueprints, measure twice and cut once. I was good at it. Liked the clarity of building something real, something that would stand after you walked away. Then I got into UW’s grad program and traded hammers for keyboards. I’ve missed working with my hands like this.
I move through the house with my toolbox, cataloging what needs fixing, as if it actually matters. As if I have time to do the repairs. The banister on the stairs. The cabinet door that won’t stay closed. A piece of baseboard in the dining room hanging by a nail. Each small repair feels like penance for all the years I wasn’t here.
In the kitchen, I tighten the loose handle on the pantry door, then look over at Mom’s bill-paying spot at the counter. It looks barely changed, like she might walk in and sit down to go over papers any minute now. She’d claimed this corner years ago, with its built-in desk area and shallow drawer for stamps and checkbooks. One drawer is half-open, and I can see the edge of a photo sticking out.
It’s us at Jack’s high school graduation. Mom between us, beaming. I barely made it back for the ceremony, forty-eight hours of forced family togetherness before escaping back to Seattle.
I set the photo aside and absently flip through the drawer’s contents. Old grocery lists in Mom’s handwriting. A warranty for a blender. Christmas cards she kept for some reason. Then, near the back, an official-looking envelope with a return label says “Washington State Adoption Intermediary Services.”
I pull out the letter, already opened.
“Dear Mr. Midnight, A party connected to your closed adoption has requested contact via our intermediary system. Please indicate whether you’d like to receive further information. No action is required unless you opt in.”
The paper feels old, brittle at the edges.What the hell is this?Years old, from the look of it. Mom kept this and never mentioned it. I fold the letter and shove it back in the drawer. Not today. All five of us boys have always known we were adopted, but it was never an issue for us because it was never an issue for mom and dad.
Dominic was adopted first, then me, then Theo and Alex—actual brothers who came as a pair—and finally Jack, who’d lived through more trouble than the rest of us combined. None of us carried Mom’s blood, but she and Dad chose us anyway, one by one, and made us theirs. To Susan Midnight, adoption wasn’t second-best. It was how she built the family she’d always dreamed of, and she never let us forget we were whole.
“Nope,” I mutter, closing the drawer firmly and returning to work.
The house creaks around me as I work. Every room holds something—a memory, a ghost, a reason I stayed away. The living room where Dad watched fights every Friday night, and where Theo once put his fist through the wall trying to kill a spider, then tried to hide it with a Seahawks poster. Mom’s small library room where I wrote my first terrible stories, thinking I had something important to say.
By the time I step back outside, the sun’s higher now, burning off the morning mist. My shirt’s soaked through, and I probably smell like a gym sock, but I’ve made progress on the repairs.
Movement by the cabin catches my eye. Maren’s got her back to me, tying rope to a post, a new clothesline, maybe. Her hair’s in a braid today, and she’s wearing cutoffs and another one of those tank tops that seem designed to make me forgetmy own name. Laila’s sitting beside her, tail wagging at full speed.
Then Maren laughs, bright and unexpected, as Laila manages to wrap the rope around both their legs. She tries to untangle them, still laughing, and says something I can’t hear.
I realize I’m staring but I can’t seem to look away. Every visit home I had a system: arrive late, leave early, avoid getting pulled into anyone’s life. Including hers. Now I’m standing here with a hammer in my hand, distracted by her laughing at the dog.
She starts to turn in my direction and I step back into the shadows of the porch before she sees me.
I head back inside the house. Attack the loose floorboards in the hallway with more force than necessary. The sound echoes through the empty rooms, drowning out everything else. Exactly what I need.
