I watched my daughter from behind as I had before, studied her terrible beauty, attended to my terrible love. That we shared blood held little meaning for me. I didn’t love her for her blood. I had fallen in love with her. I remembered the moment it happened. Sarah was three months old, and though I was happy, however scared to be a parent, my love for my daughter until that day had felt abstract, amorphous, distant. I was wiping her sour spittle from my shirt when I looked at her rather expressionless little face and I fell. Deeply. Completely. Unforgivably. Now here I was on this arid mountain, in these woods, trailing in her wake. If a bear or lion came from the brush, I would kill it with my hands to protect her. My only job in life was to keep this little animal alive, and I could not do it. Behind her there on that path, I did not consider that I wanted to be a good father, wanted to be a loving father, only that I wanted to continue being a father.

Be5 h3

There was no bear or lion on that day, though there were plenty of them. We sat and enjoyed the view of Pasadena below, Los Angeles in the distance hunkered under its brown haze. There was no distinct division between the haze and the city below, but between the haze and the blue sky above it. I imagined that up this high we were more in the blue than in the haze. We ate cheddar cheese and yellow translucent apples and drank water from our canteens.

gxh3 Rxh3

Bg3 O-O-O

I could not say that I was surprised by her castling, but the move always took me in some way to another place. That two pieces could move at once seemed like magic to me, enough so that I wished I could make a similar move in real life. What such a thing would look like I had no idea. “Very clever, Madame Nenarokov.”

“Where is Mom?”

“Teaching.”

“Right.”

e4 e5

Outside, it looked as if it might actually rain, but we knew it wouldn’t.

“What happens when you miss class like you did today?” Sarah asked.

“Sometimes I make it up, but that’s hard. Usually I simply extend my office hours so the students can come see me if they want. It’s only a big deal if a teacher makes a habit of not showing up.”

“Oh.”

“You know, sometimes people just get sick.” I was sorry as soon as I said it, but nothing registered in her face.

“Grace Tilly got a smartphone,” Sarah said.

“Really? What will Grace Tilly do with a smartphone?”

“Call people. Look up stuff.”

“Do your other friends have phones?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then who is she going to call?”

“So, no smartphone.”

“I’ll talk to your mother.”

d5 Qd6

Qa4