“I think these jeans will work,” he said, his voice neutral. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to also express my gratitude for your assistance to your grandmother, so she knows you did as she requested.”

With that he turned and walked back into the dressing room.

Six

That evening, Dad and I had the library to ourselves.

It was a small room at the back of the inn and no one’s idea of a real library, but it did the trick. There were four bookshelves, including the stand-alone bookcase made of walnut that Grandma Jo found on one of her trips to Dallas. It held the most books. Hardbacks. The leather-bound types with gold lettering that no one ever opened but made for nice décor.

Dad and I sat across from each other at the round Maitland-Smith chess table with its sepia-colored leather board. The black and white pieces were made entirely of wood, not ivory. Grandma Jo made sure of that before she had it shipped up from Texas for Dad’s thirtieth birthday a few years ago. Because one of the few things my low-key father loved was playing a game of chess. While Grandma Jo couldn’t be accused of spoiling anyone, she tried to find the little things that brought joy to those she loved and made sure they had them.

Dad almost cried when he saw it. He decided to keep it at the inn, though, because he liked it the way it looked here better than our own house. I think he also liked to use it as an excuse to come over to the inn and hang out. He and his mom were close.

I was already losing tonight, but at least it was starting to take him longer to accomplish. It was the twelfth move and he had been staring at the board for five minutes. Normally when he took this long to decide which piece to move, I’d have to tamp down my frustration.

But not tonight.

The longer we stretched out the game, the more time I had to psych myself into bringing up the big topic. Either of them.

Dad finally moved his white bishop to D5.

“Have you talked to your mother?” he asked, his manner casual, as if he wanted to know whether I’d remembered to fill up the gas tank after borrowing his Jeep Cherokee.

I felt my chest constrict. Okay. Here it was: the Mom Talk.

“We’ve texted,” I answered with an equal degree of casual, like my heart hadn’t started beating hummingbird fast. “She said she was with Aunt Jennifer and they were seeing the sights.”

Aunt Jennifer was Mom’s older sister who lived in Springfield, Missouri, with her second husband, Colby, who had sky-blue eyes and dimples, fancied himself a musician, and, according to Mom, had “zero job prospects anywhere on the horizon.” Aunt Jennifer was crazy about him.