Page 64 of Things We Left Behind

“I prefer my orderly piles of money, thank you.” But I wasn’t thinking about bank balances. I was thinking about Sloane, thighs spread, red lips parted as I finally thrust home.

“Come on. Let’s order our dinner, and then I’ll let you trounce me at a game of chess.”

11

Shania Twain Is a Beautiful Badass

Lucian

Twenty-­three years ago

Here we go,” Simon Walton said as he set a Garfield coffee mug that saidiwish this were lasagnaat my elbow.

We were facing off in the breakfast nook in the Waltons’ kitchen, a room that was almost the size of the entire first floor of my house. Leaves of orange and rust whispered on the other side of the angular windows above the banquette.

On the freshly painted turquoise table between us sat a worn chessboard midbattle.

“Thanks,” I said, still frowning at the board. I liked that he didn’t question me or make fun of me for asking for coffee. Men drank coffee. I was learning to like it.

I closed my fingers around the knight’s head and moved it deeper into enemy territory.

“Remember, you can’t just go on the attack willy-­nilly,” Mr. Walton explained. “You need to have a plan. A strategy. You can’t just think about what you’re going to do. You have to predict what your opponent is going to do.”

With that advice, his bishop neatly destroyed my knight.

“Damn it,” I muttered, picking up the coffee.

Mr. Walton grinned. “No quitting. See it through.”

Annoyed, I sacrificed a pawn.

“And that’s checkmate,” Mr. Walton said, nudging his glasses up his nose.

I slouched against the yellow patterned cushion. “I don’t think I like this game.”

“I have a feeling with a little more practice you’ll find your stride. It’s just like what you do on the football field from inside the pocket.”

It was a November Sunday afternoon. Which meant no game, no practice, no escape from the hell I lived next door.

Dad was out fishing with friends. Mom was where she spent most of her free time when my father wasn’t around: alone in her bedroom. I’d spotted Mr. Walton in his backyard deadheading flowers and volunteered to help.

“How are the chess lessons going?” Karen Walton asked, sweeping into the room with two bags of groceries.

“Great,” Mr. Walton insisted.

“Terrible,” I said.

We both rose from the table and each relieved her of a bag. While Mr. Walton laid a loud kiss on his wife, I busied myself with delivering the bag to the huge central island. There were small messes and chaos here. A haphazard stack of cookbooks, a flour spill next to the porcelain container that no one had gotten around to cleaning up. The bowl of apples sat half on and half off a magazine open to an article about sending kids to college.

Messes weren’t tolerated in my house. Anything that might be a trigger had to be avoided at all costs.

“There’s more in the car,” Mrs. Walton announced, giving Mr. Walton an embarrassing pat on the ass. Affection was something else that didn’t exist at my place.

“We’ll get them,” Mr. Walton insisted. “Treat yourself to a cup of coffee while my protégé and I unload.”

“What would I do without you two? And I think I’ll have wine instead,” Mrs. Walton said, giving me an affectionate pat on the arm as she headed toward the large built-­in china cabinet that housed a menagerie of mismatched bar glasses.

I didn’t quite manage to hide the wince when her fingers accidentally came in contact with my latest bruise. The Waltons drank. There was wine at the dinner table, and I saw Mr. and Mrs. Walton sometimes enjoying cocktails on the front porch. But I never saw either of them drunk.