46. “You remind me of him.”
“YOU REMIND ME OF HIM.”
HALE
Harry was already there when I arrived.
He always was lately. The facility said he asked about the park every morning now and got restless after lunch, wanting his jacket.
I crossed the grass, and sat across from him. “Afternoon, I’m Hale.”
He looked up from the board, assessed the stranger joining him for the afternoon, then nodded once, satisfied with whatever he found. “Harry.”
“Good to meet you.”
“You play white or black?”
“Whatever you’re not.”
He turned the board so the white pieces faced me, and we opened the way we always opened. Pawn to e4. Knight to f3. Bishop out early. A pattern so old it had worn grooves in me.
There was no predicting it, no pattern I’d found in six years of Tuesdays. Some days he arrived already somewhere far off, moving pieces without much interest, content just to sit in the afternoon air.
Other days he was fully here, eyes quick, two moves ahead before I’d settled onto the bench.
Today was one of those days. Sharp. Patient. Waiting until the board gave him something.
Problem was, I wasn’t.
I was back at the airport, watching Yasmine leave. It had still been dark, her luggage in the bed of the truck and her camera bag between her feet because she wouldn’t put it in the back.
She’d been quiet on the drive, but not tense like before. More settled than anything else, like the decision had already moved through her and come out the other side.
At the drop-off we moved her bags to the curb without ceremony. She was good at airports. Efficient. She’d checked her tags, rezipped her carry-on, and I’d wanted to say something, but I hadn’t known what.
Then she looked up at me. “Don’t look so sad, Hale. I’ll be back soon. It’s only six months.”
I’d started to answer.
She shook her head once, like she wasn’t finished. “I love you.”
Same tone she used for weather and flight gates. Certain. Factual.
I loved her too. I knew it then and I still didn’t say it.
“I’ll miss you,” she said.
Harry cleared his throat. “Your turn.”
I blinked down at the board. The position had changed. I made my move.
Harry considered it, then made his own. “You’ve got woman problems,” he said.
I huffed a breath. “Something like that.”
“Well?”
“My girl wanted me to go somewhere with her. Couldn’t do it.”
“Somewhere far?”
“Far enough.”
“You love her?”
“Yes.”
“Sure about that?” He shook his head slowly. The fondness came into his voice unguarded. “My wife. There’s nowhere I wouldn’t go to be with her.”
I smiled. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. She’s been gone about eight years. Just me and my boy now.”
My fingers tightened around the knight.
“You remind me of him.”
I kept my eyes on the board and moved the piece. “Do I?”
He nodded, his own piece still in his hand.
“You’re almost as dumb about women as he is, but he’s fifteen. He’ll grow out of it. I hope.”
My mouth twitched. “Fingers crossed.”
“Mm.” He glanced down, registered the bishop, dismissed it, and moved a pawn. “Whip smart, that kid. Off at school now.”
I’d been fifteen when he started the story. Somewhere between one move and the next, I’d gone away to college. Time moved differently for Harry.
A faint smile crossed his face. “Going to change the world someday. Won the regional science award last spring. His teacher called me. Said she’d never seen a more gifted student.
But I already knew that. Been watching him think since he was old enough to sit at a board.
It’s good that other people see it, though. ”
In my mind, I saw the plaque. Regional Science Award. I knew exactly where it was—third shelf in the study, under semesters of engineering textbooks. The ribbon was still on it.
Harry studied the position. “Good,” he said.
The same word in the same register that had followed my good moves since I was a kid. It was now given to a stranger across a concrete table.
I breathed in slowly and made my next move. The game had slowed into an endgame, neither of us rushing.
“I worry about him sometimes,” he said after a while.
“Your son?”
“Hm. He’s a sensitive boy, and the world is big. But he’ll figure it out.” He was looking at the board, but his mind had drifted. “That kid is going to change the world. Just need to stay alive long enough to see it.”
My father sat across from me, in a park had gone quiet except for a dog somewhere on the far path and traffic humming beyond the trees, proud of a boy who was supposed to go somewhere.
The boy had come home instead.
His hands shook slightly when he reached for the rook. Those hands had taught me where the pieces went. Had tapped the board when he said, Watch now. Watch how this works.
They were slower now, less certain than they used to be, but still his.
We played a second game.
He talked about my mother. The same stories, rearranged. I listened like I always did, collecting them like they were new.
Eventually, his aide came for him.
My father accepted the interruption without complaint, already standing, already somewhere else.
“Good game,” he said.
“Good game.”
We shook hands.
“You never said why you couldn’t go with your girl.”
“I’ve got responsibilities I can’t leave.”
“Responsibilities?”
“My father is sick.”
Harry’s face softened instantly. “I’m sorry, son.”
“Me too.” The back of my throat burned. “Harry?”
“Yeah.”
“If it was your boy,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “Sitting home from a woman he loved. Staying because of a sick father he couldn’t leave.” I made myself look at him. “What would you tell him?”
Harry didn’t answer right away. His aide had come up quietly behind him, waiting with one hand not quite touching his elbow.
“I’d tell him to go,” he said. “Job’s to get him ready to go. You do the job right, they go.”
Simple as that. Like it was obvious and had never been a question at all.
He let the aide guide him toward the path, then stopped after a few steps, turned. “He’d want you to go. Your father. Whatever’s wrong with him. He’d want that for you.”
For one second, he looked at me like he knew exactly who I was. I wanted very much to believe he did. But I knew better.
“Thank you, Harry.”
Then the aide said something about supper, and Harry turned away.
I watched them cross the park until the grass went silver and they disappeared beyond the trees.
My father had spent years teaching me how to build a life, but somewhere along the way I’d stopped living my life and started standing watch over it.
I walked back to the car, sat with my hands on the wheel and didn’t start it.
Yasmine’s voice came back to me.
I love you.
I took out my phone.
Christchurch was eleven days away.
For the first time, I let myself look.