Page 129 of The Best Shot

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.

37

“I’M NOT CALLING WHEN I GET THERE.”

YASMINE

Ferdinand saw me coming and sighed.

Not loudly. Ferdinand didn’t do anything loudly. He had spent too many years gliding through rooms full of senators and drunks and men who thought money counted as manners to waste energy on visible distress.

But I saw it—the pause at the hostess stand, the flicker of his gaze down my dress.

“Right this way, miss.”

I gave him my best smile and followed, careful not to step on the train. Because there was a train. My gown was full-length, silver, sequined to the floor, and completely unreasonable for a lounge in a town this size. But a theme was a theme.