11

"So you've really done this before?" Jamie asked for the second time after their assigned staff member secured their harnesses to their respective auto-belays. Indoor rock climbing - that was what James had picked for them to do today. Jamie considered himself to be relatively adventurous, but he was initially weary of any activity that required he sign a lengthy waiver that only an attorney could decipher. Looking around, the place was filled with people of all ages scaling different routes in the massive gym. If they could do this, so could he.

"Yup! I told you, I came here for a birthday party. It's fun!" James replied, already climbing onto the first foothold. He could barely sit through the mandatory orientation. The fact that it was his second time here didn't get him out of rehearsed speech on dos and don'ts and all of the usual boring adult safety talk. So he sat through it wishing the lady would go faster while his dad looked like he wanted to take notes.

"You sure about that?" Jamie teased, but he was looking forward to his first climb.

He stopped as he took hold of a grip and eyed his father. "Are you afraid?"

"No, I'm not afraid!" Jamie insisted and tugged on his harness to make sure it really was secure. "I just never tried it before."

James turned back to the wall and went up further. "I wanted to come back but Mom's afraid of heights."

"I remember that."

Father and son continued chatting while they ascended the wall.

"I asked Grandpa one time he came for a visit, but he said he was too old. I think he was scared too."

"So I'm the lucky one," Jamie chuckled.

James stopped and looked down at his father, he was moving faster and had at least five feet on him. "Are you gonna chicken out?"

Jamie didn't dare take his eyes off the wall despite James' repeated jabs. "No! I'm doing this, don't you see?"

"It's easy!"

"Alright, hot shot. Wait up!" Jamie reached for the next grip.

"Uh uh, you're not beating me to the top!" James swore and double timed it - he definitely had the Reagan competitive gene. He wasn't waiting for anybody.

While Jamie went at his own careful pace. "I never thought I would! I'll give you this one, at least until I get comfortable with it."

A short while later, James waited at the top for his dad. This was his second favorite part anyway - being at the top of the wall, looking down at everyone else.

Once Jamie joined him, he turned to take in the view as well.

"See, it was easy," the boy declared.

"It's a workout, but it is fun. Dude, you're the one that's like Spider Man the way you got up here."

James gave him a proud, toothy grin. "Going down is much more fun. See ya!" And then he was gone, rappelling down the wall without fear or hesitation.

"Oh, jeez. Here we go," Jamie said and took slower, more controlled hops down the wall than the long, fearless jumps James took. Jamie's feet had barely touched the ground before the nine year old was ready for more.

"You ready to go again?"

"Do I have a choice?" Jamie laughed.

"Nope," James said, taking the same route up as he was determined to get up faster than the first time. Then they could try another one.

Their ninety-minute session flew by. Jamie lost track of their climbs. They made their way around the gym and he got better with each climb. Although, James still beat him each time.

"That was fun," Jamie declared as they took a seat on a bench and watched the other climbers.

"I told you!"

"You can make this a hobby, you know? Lots of people do this outdoors. Although I like doing it this way for now."

"I saw a movie about a guy that does it without ropes. It was like his job, just climbing mountains," James shared.

"I think I saw the same one and, no, his way was not for me." Maybe Jamie wasn't as adventurous as he thought.

James brought his feet up onto the bench and wrapped his arms around his legs. "If I got good enough, maybe I could do that for a living. That would be cool, huh?"

"Yeah? So that's what you wanna be when you grow up? Professional daredevil?" Jamie smirked.

He shrugged as he watched other climbers move up the walls. "I don't know. Mom says I can be a lawyer like her, but her job doesn't seem so fun."

Jamie leaned back, bracing his arms atop the table behind them. "Been there, bud. Some people enjoy it, but you gotta do something you love. Keep in mind that it doesn't mean your job is always gonna be fun. It should be something you enjoy for it doesn't feel like work."

He turned away from the climbers and eyed his dad. "Yeah. Mom said you went to school together and were a lawyer first like her. But you're not anymore."

"We did. That's how we met."

"Why'd you become a cop then?"

"I told you, it was the family business."

"Yeah, but why not be a cop first then?"

Jamie kept himself from rolling his eyes at the question on everyone's lips when they heard he was a lawyer in the past. For James, he would go into the reasons he didn't share with most others. "Part of it was because of my mom, your Grandma Mary. She wanted to keep me out of the family business."

"Why?"

"She already had a husband and father-in-law in the NYPD and two sons destined for it. I think she didn't want to worry about having another one of her boys in the bag," Jamie explained.

"What's the bag mean?"

"It means out on the streets, on patrol."

"So you did it for her," James guessed. He guessed that he could understand that. He did a lot of things because his mom wanted him too.

Jamie sighed and tilted his head from one side to the other. "Sort of. I saw the good I could do as an attorney and it can be an exciting career. Your Aunt Erin loves her job, so does your mom. And I was enjoying it, but then," he stopped at the really tricky part.

"Then what?" James pressed when his dad looked like he wanted to stop.

Jamie thought about how he could phrase it so James would understand. "When your Uncle Joe died, I felt a calling to serve. The urge to be a cop was always there but after we lost him, it was stronger than my desire to be a lawyer. Being a lawyer wasn't as fun for me anymore."

James nodded, seeming to accept his answer - something Jamie was grateful for.

"If it's a family business, is anyone else going to be cop too?" It seemed like that was a part of being a Reagan. He was a Reagan-Davenport and wondered if that was in him too.

"No, at least not yet, I don't think," Jamie said with a shake of his head. "Nicky is working for non-profits here and the boys are still getting through school. They're still figuring out what they want to do." Jamie always assumed one of Danny's boys would end up in the bag, but that still remained to be seen.

"Being a cop sounds cool," James commented casually. He'd never really thought about what they do until he found out about his dad.

Jamie leaned towards James and looked him in the eyes. "I'd never tell you to keep anything from your mom but maybe keep that opinion on the DL for now."

"How come?"

He might get in trouble for this, but refused to give James the hated 'it's complicated' answer, even though this was very complicated. "The job scared her. It's a lot for the families of cops to deal with - the constant worrying and wondering if something can happen out there. It's not for everyone and I respect that."

"Is that why you're not together?" he guessed.

"Uh, it's more complicated than that," Jamie said, then quickly chastised himself for doing what he told himself not to do two seconds ago.

"Why do adults always say that?" James complained.

"Sorry," Jamie groaned. "It's just that in this case, it's true. I think most adults would pay to go back to childhood when life was simpler, so don't be in such a hurry to grow up."

James wasn't willing to let it go. He always wondered why his parents weren't together. "I heard you guys talking about it the day you brought me home," he confessed, hoping he would explain some more.

So much for being quiet, Jamie sighed to himself. "It had a lot to do with it. Your mom supported me when I made the change and cheered me on when I graduated from the police academy, but it was hard on her once I hit the streets. I was too focused on the job. There's a lot I should have done differently back then. As much as we loved each other, sometimes grownups aren't meant to be together and we realized that."

"It does sound complicated," James conceded.

Jamie barked out a laugh as they came back to that hated phrase. "Told you so."

"Is that why adults look stressed all the time?" He could definitely wait to grow up if that's what happened when you got older.

"Yeah, we do, don't we? Enjoy being nine, bud," he said, ready to leave those topics behind. "So back to my question. I know what your mom would want you to be. What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I wanted to be a basketball player, but I'll have to wait to see how tall I get first," James shared.

"Not necessarily. Look up Mugsy Bogues, Spudds Web, Isaiah Thomas. They didn't break six feet and made it to the NBA."

After James responded with a silent shrug, Jamie pressed again. "Okay. So if the NBA doesn't work out, what's your backup then?"

A slow smile crept across James' face. "A gamer," he declared.

"You and every other kid in America," Jamie said, remembering a Sunday dinner conversation.

"Mom says that's not a real job."

"I'm not so sure either, although Sean would argue it is," Jamie offered.

James thought about it some more and the same sly smile was back. "Then I want to make the games and then I can play them!"

"That is definitely an industry that won't be going away any time soon," Jamie reasoned.

"Seriously, though. I want to make games and apps. We do coding in computer science and I'm in coding club at school."

"Woah. That's a major skill most people could never take on, me included. It's an important one too. Computers run the world."

"It's fun. We made our own game in coding club, but it was only 2D."

"Only 2-D, he says…that's still impressive! Sounds like something you enjoy that you can definitely turn into a career."

"I guess. At least there's that in case I never get drafted by the NBA," James reasoned.

"Having that backup is important," Jamie snorted.

I realized while writing this chapter that Nicky was still around during this time and I completely left her out of the family meeting where they learned about James. My bad! She'll magically reappear when the big family dinner rolls around.