Let It Shine Read Online Free

their loss.
    Ivan had taken a lot of hits to the head, but he had a feeling the memory of Sofie screaming, “It’s my fault” as she was pulled away from him would never get jarred loose. Nor would the thing he’d been too stunned to respond. No, it’s mine . He was old enough to know now that it had been an unluckily timed medical ailment, but he’d always wondered if Sofie had allowed herself forgiveness. Seeing how tight and withdrawn she was now, compared to the rambunctious girl he’d known—he didn’t think it was only adulthood that had made Sofie a dormouse.
    Ivan took a quick shower and padded through the living room past his father, who was curled up on the old couch that had become his second bed over the last two years. Ivan knew that if he bothered to look down, he would see the photo album beside him.
    Each night that Ivan found his father in this misery, he wanted to break the world. Leo Friedman wasn’t an expressive man, but he’d loved his wife and missed her like hell, so much so that he could neither sleep in their marriage bed or dispose of it. Ivan had been by his father’s side through the ritual stages of mourning— aninut , shiva , shloshim —but that hadn’t released his dad from the grief that was always with him. He put on a good face at the synagogue and community events, but Ivan saw the toll the loss had taken on him. He was like a man whose shadow had been ripped away from him; every time he stepped out of the darkness and into the light, he need only look down to remember what he’d lost.
    Ivan draped a crocheted blanket over him, then slid off the yarmulke that was being crushed against the arm of the sofa to reveal his father’s thinning pate. His mother hadn’t had any hair by the end of the cancer treatments, and her head had been smooth under his palm that last day. Ivan wanted to touch the vulnerable spot of scalp showing through, to give comfort where he could, but that would wake his father. These days they got along much better when one of them was sleeping.
    He threw his gym bag over his shoulder as he stepped out into the still-dark morning and hopped onto his bike—not the Ducati Bronco he dreamed of owning, but a simple Schwinn. His dad needed the ‘54 Skylark they shared to get to his small watch repair shop in Richmond. Ivan breathed in deeply as he propelled himself through the cool early morning air toward his boxing gym; the black gym on the edge of town, not the country club where the white boxers trained.
    Jack’s Gym had produced several champions, and even some guys who were working the circuit now. Ivan told himself he would’ve chosen Jack’s anyway, even if he hadn’t been banned from the country club. He hoped he would’ve, at least. It had been his home away from home since Miss Delia died, and he begged his mother not to force another nanny on him. He’d only been months away from becoming bar mitzvah, and had convinced his mother that he needed to put away childish things. He thought she’d caved so easily only because she missed Miss Delia too. “Delia, zikhronah livrakha . It’s not as if I’ll find anyone else who can make shlishkes as well as I can,” she’d said with a shrug. It might have seemed cold to an onlooker, but coming from his mother that had been the highest compliment.
    He pulled a key out from under a rubber tire near the door and let himself into the musty gym. The scents of sweat and sawdust made him feel more at home than the antiseptic smell of his house; his father had become troublingly obsessed with cleanliness after his mother’s passing, spending hours at a time scrubbing the floors and counters.
    Big Jack was there before him, as usual. The man was going on sixty-five and still strong and spry. Jack was working the heavy bag hard, which meant there was something on his mind.
    “Did Loretta give you cold grits for breakfast again?” Ivan asked, hoping to pull a smile from the man.
    “Loretta’s cold