Chapter 2
The will was notarized the following weekend.
It happened at Howard's office.
I went with my mom.
David and his mother were already there when we arrived.
It was the first time I'd met either of them.
Linda Williams was forty-eight and had clearly spent money on staying that way. She wore a black dress and high heels, carried a bag with an enormous logo on it, and sat on the couch with her legs crossed.
A young man stood next to her.
He was pale and clean-cut, with a bright watch on his wrist and not one hair out of place.
It was David Carter.
My half-brother.
I stood in the doorway and looked at him for three seconds.
He looked back at me for three seconds.
Then he smiled.
His smile was one that anyone who had worked in an office had seen.
It was the smile the owner's son wore when he stopped by to inspect the people who actually did the work.
It looked down at me with a little pity and a lot of contempt.
"You must be my brother, Alex."
He called me his brother.
He leaned on the words, and he meant them to land.
I didn't say anything.
My fists closed and opened again.
Linda got up from the couch, clicked over in her heels, and stopped in front of my mom.
She was half a head taller than my mom.
She looked my mom up and down.
My mom had on a gray cardigan washed almost white and a pair of plain black flats.
Linda smiled.
That smile was worse than her son's.
"You must be Ms. Summers. Richard talked about you all the time. He said you were careful with money, that you could stretch a dollar until it screamed."
My mom nodded.
"I am careful."
"Well, you can loosen up now." Linda swung the bag onto her shoulder. "Richard's gone, and one person doesn't spend much."
I was about to go off right there.
My mom put her hand over mine.
The grip wasn't strong, but it was steady.
"She's right," my mom said under her breath. "One person really doesn't spend much."
The signing process was quick.
Howard laid twenty-five transfer documents out on the table.
My mom signed them one at a time, and David picked each one up as she finished.
At the thirteenth, Linda leaned in for a look.
"Which one is the house on Riverside Avenue, the detached one?"
Howard flipped through the stack. "Number eighteen."
"Sign that one first," Linda said. "We want to move in as soon as we can. David has wanted a house like that since he was a kid."
My mom didn't say anything. She pulled the eighteenth out of the pile and signed it.
Then she set the pen down and flexed her wrist.
"Tired?" I asked.
"My hand's sore." She shook it out. "I haven't signed this much in forty-six years."
Linda snorted a laugh beside her.
I had no idea what was funny.
I didn't want to know.
It was three in the afternoon by the time the last page was done.
Howard was walking us out when my mom stopped.
"Howard, David just moved into a new house. I'd like to send something over. What would be appropriate?"
Howard and I froze at the same time.
Howard opened his mouth. "Ms. Summers, what did you say?"
"A gift," my mom said, as if it were the plainest thing in the world. "His father just died, and a young man moving into an empty house feels it. Fruit is a nice thought."
That night my mom actually ordered a fruit basket.
It wasn't a grocery-store one either. She picked out the arrangement piece by piece, the expensive kind.
There were apples, oranges, and dragon fruit, all of them chosen to say good luck and long life.
It came out beautifully arranged, and it cost sixty-three dollars.
She had it delivered to the front gate of the house on Riverside Avenue.
The driver called ahead, and David was quiet on the other end for a long time.
"Who sent it?"
"A Ms. Summers."
There was another long silence.
"Leave it by the door."
The driver told me later that he saw the yard through the gate when he set the basket down.
Linda was directing the movers as they carried a leather couch into the living room.
She was shouting at them.
"Left. More to the left. Richard and I spent six months picking this thing out!"
When I heard that, my nails almost went through my palms.
Six months picking it out with Richard.
Six months.
So my dad was still alive when that woman started shopping for furniture.
I told my mom about it when I got home.
She was out on the balcony watering her plants.
She had a pothos going that had grown halfway across the wall.
"Mom, you're really not angry?"
She poured out the last of the water and set the can down.
"Alex, do you remember when I taught you chess?"
"I remember. You taught me chess."
"There's a rule in chess." She wiped her hands. "A good player doesn't fight for every pawn.
"All that stuff they took, honestly—"
She didn't finish her sentence.
She turned and walked back inside.
That night, I lay in bed, tossing and turning.
Her words kept running through my head.
A good player didn't fight for every pawn.
So what was she fighting for?
Was she really not fighting for anything?
Maybe what she cared about wasn't even on the board.