36. “His name is Harry.”
“HIS NAME IS HARRY.”
YASMINE
Things were fine.
That’s what I told myself, and told everyone else, too. And on a good day, believed about sixty percent of it.
He texted. I texted back.
He asked if I wanted to come over Thursday and I said I was busy, which was true. I had a packing list that kept mutating, and a two-hour call with the NSF field coordinator that made my brain feel like it was melting.
Friday he suggested dinner. I told him I had plans with the girls, then spent the evening alone reorganizing a camera bag that did not need reorganizing.
Saturday I had a shoot.
One of those was a lie. All of them were convenient as hell.
I wasn’t proud of it. I was trying to do the adult thing, which is not the same as actually being an adult, but close enough to pass.
He’d said no.
He had his reasons. People always have reasons.
And I was a grown-ass woman about to spend six months in Antarctica photographing emperor penguins. I was not going to waste the last few weeks before I left nursing a bruise I wasn’t even supposed to have.
When I asked him to come with me, some stupid, hopeful part of me had assumed the answer would be yes.
Not because the timing was perfect or the logistics were easy, but because it was me asking.
Because I wanted him there. Because somewhere in the last several months we’d become the kind of people who showed up for each other, and I’d apparently built a whole future out of that.
Turns out I’d been carrying a picture of us he never agreed to pose for.
It took me a few days to swallow that.
It took him about the same amount of time to get tired of me dodging him.
The knock came just after six.
I opened the door expecting Annie, since she was the only person who came by without warning.
It wasn’t Annie.
Hale usually carried himself loose and easy. Today he looked wound tight beneath the skin.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
We stood there in that awkward little pause until he nodded toward the street.
“Come for a ride.”
“I’m in the middle of—”
“Yasmine.”
I studied his face. “Where?”
“You’ll see.”
I hesitated long enough to remind myself I still had a choice. Then I grabbed my keys and followed him out anyway.
Curiosity is a powerful motivator.
Trust is worse.
A few minutes later, we pulled out of my neighborhood and I watched Whitlock Hills slide past the window like a slow reel. The hardware store with its faded awning. The diner with the neon sign that never quite shut off.
Past the feed store the road ran under a stand of live oaks, and the temperature dropped enough that I shivered. Hale reached for the heat without a word.
I didn’t ask where we were going. If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me.
The silence sat differently between us. Careful. Like we were both trying not to touch that bruise.
He kept both hands on the wheel. I kept mine folded in my lap.
Ten minutes later Hale pulled into the town park and killed the engine.
The evening light was soft, that golden hour I got greedy for. Kids tore across the grass while someone threw a tennis ball for a dog near the far fence.
We walked toward one of the benches. He sat.
I sat beside him, and for a long minute neither of us said anything. Then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands hanging loose between them, and lifted his chin toward the far side of the park.
“See that table?”
I followed his gaze. A concrete chess table sat under one of the trees. An older man leaned over the board, forearms planted on the edge like the position had become permanent years ago.
“I come here Tuesdays and Saturdays,” Hale said. “To play chess with him.”
The man picked up a bishop, held it above the board a moment too long, and set it down two squares from where his hand had started.
“That’s my father.”
My eyes snapped to him, then back to the table. The jaw. The broad shoulders softened by age but still carrying the same shape Hale wore so easily. I’d seen that face younger on a wall at his farmhouse.
“Oh.” It was the only thing I could think to say.
Kids kept running near the fountain. A woman pushed a stroller behind us, the wheels whispering over the path before the sound faded.
“His name is Harry. He has early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Diagnosed about eleven years ago.” He said it flat, then rubbed his hands down his thighs, like the motion helped the words keep moving.
“Or rather, that’s when I found out. I think he’d been hiding it from me before that.
Always just forgetfulness. Stress. Getting older. ”
Harry straightened the pieces along his back rank, nudging each one until it sat centered in its square.
“I was finishing my first year of college.” His jaw worked. “They found him three blocks from the shop. Middle of the street. Didn’t know where he was.”
I kept my hands still in my lap and waited.
“I came home.”
“That’s why you never left,” I said softly.
Hale nodded. “Someone had to run the business. And staying… it was the only thing that made sense. To me, anyway. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
I thought about the farmhouse. All those photographs crowding the walls. The wedding portrait above the fireplace. I’d stood in front of it once and thought, this is a man who is loved here.
Another man approached the chess table and sat across from Harry. Harry gave him a small nod, as though they had done this before.
Maybe they had.
“First year was the worst,” Hale continued. “He knew what was happening. Knew he was losing things. He wrote notes to himself. Names. Dates. What day it was. Taped them all over the house. They stopped helping eventually.”
“And now?”
“He doesn’t—” Hale stopped. Tried again.
“He doesn’t know me anymore. Hasn’t for a while.
He’s got round-the-clock care. He’s got good people with him.
He’s comfortable.” His voice steadied on the easier facts.
“He likes his books and he likes the chess, and on the good days, he’s happy. But he doesn’t know who I am.”
Under the tree, Harry made his opening move.
“I come here twice a week. I introduce myself. I sit down. We play.” A small smile touched the corner of his mouth. “Best and worst part of my week. Outside of you.”
The wind moved through the trees overhead and the leaves rattled.
I thought about my own father, who had packed a bag when I was ten and walked out knowing exactly who he was leaving behind.
Harry hadn’t chosen to go anywhere. He had slipped someplace inside himself that his son couldn’t follow. Twice a week Hale came here anyway, introducing himself to a stranger with his eyes.
I’d spent the whole week feeling unchosen. Watching Harry lean over that chessboard, I thought maybe I’d been measuring the wrong thing.
After a moment, Hale spoke. “I want to go with you, Yasmine. I want to be with you. But I… can’t leave him. I can’t be nine thousand miles away if something happens.”
There were things I could have said. That I understood. That it was okay. That I was sorry. Nothing felt enough.
I reached over and took his hand.
“Who’s that with him?” I asked instead.
“Patrick. One of his aides.” His thumb moved once against my knuckles. “He’s with him every day. Harry’s easier with him than he is with me.”
He looked down at our fingers, then back across the park.
In five weeks, I would board that plane south. Hale would stay here.
I still wished he could come, that hadn’t changed. But now I understood what staying cost him.
I held his hand while his father played chess beneath the trees.