“You have three children,” I reminded him once. “Where are they?”
Arthur shifted his bishop and stared at the chessboard, his expression turning heavy.
“They don’t care about me,” he continued. “They are just waiting for me to die.”
“I know Gregory,” he said. “He is patient. He is polite in person. And he is planning something. I can feel it the way you feel a storm before it breaks.”
I had no comforting words to offer.
The pain behind his voice had lived there far too long to be soothed so easily.
Instead, I reached across the table and gently rested my hand over his.
He smiled faintly, though the worry never left his eyes.
“You are the only person in this entire place who wants nothing from me. Do you realize that?”
