50. “Sounds like a good man.”
“SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD MAN.”
HARRY
The woman was already at my table when I arrived.
That was unusual. This was my table. But here she was, putting the pieces where they belonged like she had been invited.
“That’s my seat,” I said.
She looked up and smiled. “I know. I’m sorry.” She moved to the other side of the table, careful with the pieces. “I was hoping you’d let me sit a while.”
I studied her. Steady hands. Watchful.
“You play?” I asked.
“Badly.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I wanted to meet you.” She slid a pawn forward. e4. “I’m Yasmine.”
“Harry.”
“I know.”
I brought out a knight. She took longer than she needed for her reply. Four moves later, I had her knight in my hand.
“You weren’t lying. You do play badly.”
She laughed. “I warned you.”
“Well. It’s good you admit it,” I said. “Then we can start there.”
“I was hoping you’d teach me something,” she said. “Though I may be a lost cause.”
Her bishop came out clumsy, but she was trying.
“You just need practice.”
“Hale says the same thing.”
“Hale?”
The name tugged at me, and in my mind I saw a serious face bent over a chessboard, brow furrowed, hand hovering too long over a chessboard.
“My partner,” she said.
I took her rook without thinking.
“Oh,” I said.
She watched me for a second, then seemed to make a decision. “Can I tell you about him?”
I shrugged.
“He works with his hands,” she said. “Fixes things. Old cars mostly.”
“Good work.”
“Yeah. People trust him with them. They’ll drive a long way just to have him take a look. He’s a storyteller. Keeps a small circle, but they’re solid.”
I took a pawn while she studied the board. That sounded right.
She gave up another one without seeming to notice.
“He makes things, too,” she said. “Not just fixes them.”
I looked up. “What kind of things?”
“There’s a job mechanics hate,” she said. “Something that takes two men half a day, and half the time you ruin the part getting it out. Hale built a tool for it.”
“Does it work?”
“It works.” Her mouth moved at one corner. “The man he partners with has thirty shops. Put it in every one. Now there’s a patent on it, and people who’ve never set foot in Texas keep calling the house.”
She reached into her bag and came out with a magazine, folded back on itself, and set it on the table beside the board.
“Somebody wrote about it,” she said. “There’s a picture of him leaning on a fender looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.”
I turned it toward me.
I read it twice. I don’t know that I got all of it. There were words for machines and measurements, but there was his name.
“It’s good when other people see it,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “It is.”
She put her bishop somewhere it couldn’t help her.
“He’s been talking about traveling,” she said, like she was trying the idea out loud. “Seeing more than this place.”
“About time,” I said, and I wasn’t sure why.
“Yeah,” she grinned.
“Where?”
“The Serengeti. He wants to see the herds.”
“He stayed close for a long time,” she said, and glanced at me, then back at the pieces. “When he didn’t have to.”
I had a pawn in my hand. I put it back down where it came from.
“Sounds like a good man,” I said.
Her face softened. “He is.”
My bishop took her queen. She let it happen.
“You talk like you love him,” I said.
Her fingers stilled on the edge of the board.
“Yes,” she said, softer now. “I do.”
“That’s good.”
We finished the game. I won. Then we started another. She wasn’t much of a challenge, but in between moves she kept talking.
She told me about her work and the places she’d been. The South Pole came up like it was another planet she had briefly survived. Then there was a picture of her nephew, a brand-new, wrinkled face peeking out from blankets.
The image tugged at a memory I couldn’t quite catch.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Been asking me things for an hour.”
That made her smile. “Fair. Can I take your picture?”
I looked at her, then at the camera sitting by her elbow, small and black and worn at the edges. “Why?”
She thought about it.
“You have a good face,” she said, finally. “And I’d like to remember it.”
I considered that. “All right.”
She didn’t reach for it. She set the board up again instead, and we played a third.
Somewhere in the middle of the game, my hand hovered over a bishop, and I heard the shutter.
Click.
Then once more.
That was all.
I moved the bishop.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Any good?”
“Yes. Would you like to see?”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “I trust you.”
We finished the game and packed the pieces together, our hands moving easily around each other.
She closed the box.
I looked past her, toward the edge of the park.
“Someone’s waiting.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Yes.”
I tipped my chin. “You should go to him.”
She stood. “Thank you, Harry.”
“For what?”
“For the game.” She paused. “For him.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded.
She crossed the grass to the edge of the park, where a tall man waited with his hands in his pockets.
He pulled her close without a word, and they held each other a long time.
Then the man looked up. Across the distance, our eyes met. For one clear breath—one heartbeat—I knew him.
My boy.
Standing there with a woman who loved him. Holding on. Then it was gone.
But I smiled anyway.
The other boy came a few minutes later. The one with the kind face.
“Good game?” he asked.
I looked at the couple walking away, her hand in his.
“Yes,” I said. “Very good.”
“Ready to head back?”
I nodded.
Same time. Same board. Same hope someone might sit across from me and play.
The world was big. I was small. Every day there was more of it I couldn’t keep.
But there were still good games.
There were still people who showed up.
That was enough.