Page 72 of Desolation

“You can’t cheat at chess.”

Mari moves to the seat next to her where Mr. Cartwell was sitting and grabs one of his pieces and moves it, moves it back, then moves another. I almost don’t notice it and I know the only reason I do is because I am paying close attention. She moved the first piece back to a different position.

“I’m sure you don’t play by the touch-move rule but some do. My dad loved chess. Said it helped him stay on point. Run his business better. Obviously, he meant his drug business but I didn’t know that until later.”

“He’s moving pieces?”

She nods before getting back up and moving back to her seat. “Watch him. He distracts you every time. I’ve seen him to do it multiple times over the past few weeks.”

“Dick,” I mutter.

Mari laughs and I want to kiss her face. She looks relaxed, happy, carefree. The way I want her to be. The way she always seems to be here or when she is in my arms. Whenever we talk about the shit going on in her life, she gets a wrinkle across her forehead and her mouth turns down.

“Why do you get to call him Henry?”

She grabs my hand and squeezes, a sparkle in her eye. “He likes me more than you.”

Mr. Cartwell walks back to the table and sits down. “You better not have cheated, boy.”

Mari looks over at me and smiles. I wink at her. “Not a chance.”

Mr. Cartwell looks between the two of us and then moves to the board. I watch as he does exactly what Mari said. But rather than call him out, I let him play. He probably finds too much entertainment in winning.

The rain starts to diminish by the time we finish the game but it’s just before seven and too late for us to head to the pier for our regular Sunday evening stroll.

Instead, Mari and I head back to my place and take a walk along the beach near my apartment.

“Whatever happened to Henry’s wife? He never told me.” She asks as we walk next to each other through the sand. The water just washing over our feet with the tide.

“She passed away from cancer eight years ago. Henry began to lose it. He didn’t know life without her. He’s been at the VA the last five years. The staff told me he’s been an old, grumpy, angry man the whole time. His kids didn’t know what to do with him because they couldn’t help him. They tell me it’s not till I came around that he started to be nicer. He stopped scaring the shit out of everyone else there.”

“How did you meet him?”

Do I tell her the whole story or just parts?

“I was there visiting someone else.” Close enough to the truth. “I went outside to get some fresh air and heard a ruckus. Turned out it was Henry, throwing his food at an orderly because he didn’t want food he wanted whiskey. I watched the ordeal for twenty minutes before I went back inside. Same thing happened the next day. So on the third day, I came back and brought him whiskey.”

“Ahh so you bribed him to be quiet with booze.”

“More or less. We became inseparable after that—no matter how much he tells you he hates me.”

She smiles at me and it causes my heart to speed up in my chest. It’s rare when I see her smile but it’s breathtaking whenever I do. “The man loves you. It’s pretty clear.”

I shrug. “He’s like the grandfather I never had.”

We are quiet for a while as we turn around and head back in the direction we came from. I watch the sun begin its descent into the water. I have the urge to grab her hand and I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t do the romantic shit. I’ve never had a girlfriend. And this thing between us is just sex.

“Do you ever talk to him about your past?”

I stop in my tracks at Mari’s words. I don’t know why she would ask that.

She must sense that I stopped because she turns around and looks at me. “You two seem close. And you don’t ever talk about whatever is eating away at you. But you are still standing here. Still strong. I figure you must talk to him. He seems like he understands.”

This is the last thing I want to talk about with her. I’ve kept my feelings on lockdown for the most part. All she knows is a name and that I lost him. Nothing else. I school my face to hide any emotion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh come on, Landon. You told me yourself that you lost someone. But you don’t talk about it. I can see when your mind is ruminating on it. I can see the tick in your jaw. You aren’t the only one that can read people, you know.”

I brush past her. “It’s nothing. I’ve told you that.”

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