"There's a competition," Foss said. "Regional Collegiate MMA, hosted here at Harrove, 11 days from now. The boy involved, Reese Hartwell, his family is sponsoring it. The results are arranged. He's supposed to walk away with a title he didn't earn."
"And?" Connie said. She already heard where this was going.
"And I think Mia should enter."
Another silence.
"Does she know about this yet?" Connie asked.
"No. I offered her an open invitation to come to practice. She didn't take it. Not yet."
"She'll come when she's ready," Connie said. "Or she won't come at all, and you'll have to respect that."
"I know."
"She quit after Sandra," Connie said. The words were plain.
"Sandra" was what she called the accident. The loss. Just the name.
"She hasn't trained since."
"I know that, too."
"If she comes to you, she comes because she chose it. Not because we pushed her."
"Understood."
Connie was quiet for a moment. Foss could hear her breathing, slow and even, on the other end of the line. The breathing of someone who had been in difficult moments before and knew how to be steady inside them.
"The ribbon," Connie said finally. "You saw her take it first."
"Yes."
"Then she's still herself," Connie said. "Even after everything, she's still Sandra's daughter."
Foss let that sit for a second. "She is," she said.
Another pause. Then Connie said quietly, more to herself than to Foss: "When she's ready, she'll know."
"I believe that."
"You were good to call," Connie said. "Take care of her."
"I will."
They said goodbye.
Foss set the phone down. Outside the window, the last of the evening light had gone. The campus was all lamplit paths and lit windows now. The particular, beautiful ordinary of a place full of young people who were trying to figure out who they were.
One of them was in a dormitory room somewhere on this campus, holding a navy blue ribbon, trying to find her way back to herself.
Foss picked up the sheet of paper on her desk. The registration form for the Regional Collegiate MMA Championship.
11 days.
She set it aside. She would leave it on the counter in Studio B, where anyone who came through the door could see it.
And then she would wait.
Mia lay awake that night for a long time.
The room was quiet in the way that new places are quiet until you learn their sounds. The building settling. Heat coming through the vents. Someone in the hallway, footsteps fading.
She held the ribbon loosely in her hand.