The Beautiful Game of Chess

“What a storm this is shaping up to be.” Gabby muses looking out the window.

Susan Liev sits with her sister-in-law playing chess in the living room of her house. An hour from the college, the mother of one had picked the spot herself what seems like not so long ago. It sits just outside of the ordinary, but it is close enough to decent schools and family rules. The two of them wait for Teresa to arrive home for the first time since she left for college. She travels alone by her own insistence, and by taxi of all modes. Taxi. Why couldn’t her own mother come pick her up? Susan’s heart is lacquered with a thick coat of anxiety by this. Unsettled by her reflection in the mirror, she had phoned Gabby, whom she knew would not want to be alone during the storm either.

Susan nods, following Gabby’s gaze to the dark clouds for a second. “So how did you learn chess, anyways?” Susan brings her attention back to the game at hand, considering her next move.

“I’m glad you asked.” Her opponent looks up from pondering the board, pushing up the pair of sunglasses she wears. While Gabby’s eyes do not work, she is not blind. Her sister-in-law has certain unique qualities that, to this day, Susan has seen in no other aura. Michael was like that as well. His sister is surprisingly self-sufficient, and often uses this fact as a lesson to those around her. “...because life is chess.”

“It is? I always thought life was more than seeing in black and white.”

“There is actually a line of grey between the white and black squares on the board.” Gabby shrugs. “Sure, it’s mostly one or the other, but that space is there.”

Susan squints at the board. “How can you see that?”

“To see without eyes, Susan, that is not so much the problem, but as Aristotle once said, ‘a soul without a picture cannot see.’ You see everyone’s picture, everyone’s unique splash of, not grey, but swirling color. I see the rules. That is, I learned to see them, and the grey.”

The anxious mom sighs, leaning back in her chair. “That barely makes sense to me.”

Gabby laughs, making a move.

“So, who taught you how to play?”

“Michael did.”

Susan nods, her heart embracing the memories of her white knight. “Of course.” It’s been years since Michael was killed, and the widow knows she will never get over it. Not in this lifetime. There is only one Michael, her soulmate. They created miracles together, they created life itself. “Michael was always so good at chess.” Susan smiles, thinking back.

“Michael was psychic...” Gabby laughs again at this, “...but yes, he was.”

Susan laughs too, happy that she can right now.

“The reason I always beat you isn’t because I’m better, though, it’s because you’re unwilling to define yourself. You react to me instead of making me react. You are always watching for danger, protecting your pieces instead of using them. Everything has a purpose, Susan. Even in death there is the opportunity for rebirth.”

The mother grows silent for a long time, looking at the pieces left in her own game. “I want to tell her, Gabby, I want to show her everything...”

“You love her, you want to protect her.” Her sister-in-law starts, stopping her, “...but what is protection? The hovering hand of the parent is a balance, and when you achieve it things just feel right. Does this feel right?”

Susan doesn’t answer. She can’t. She just breaths, letting the words of her good friend soak in. “Thanks for coming over, Gabriella.” The expectant mother rises, about to ask her sister-in-law if she is thirsty, but just then a car’s headlights brush past the front room, interrupting the question, the drink, the game, the storm, and everything else, as it turns into the driveway. The vehicle is yellow, a checkered strip along the side --it is the cab, surely-- but yet is has the paintings of foul, known magic. Surely not her daughter? The two auras present in the car dance amongst themselves and the other components of the storm which encircles the ominous metal cage. It is difficult to discern whose is whose.

Without a word Susan makes for her coat and outside.

The sky is dark yet illuminated and pours down the perspiration of giants as they fight in the heavens, their swords cracking thunder. Susan rushes down the pavement to greet her daughter: her purpose. Clutching the handle on the back passenger side door she has the most dreadful feeling that it is too late, that Teresa has been changed irrevocably. She tries to open the door but it locked. In the tinted window she can’t see anything beyond own her blurred reflection. The rain obscures everything as it pours down her face, hiding what would otherwise be tears. Her face contorts to surprise when the front, instead of the back door opens and Teresa pops out to meet her mother eye to eye. “Hi, Mom!” she exclaims over the force of the wind with a smile her mother has never seen before. After clutching her mother for a quick hug Teresa runs off to the trunk of the cab to get her bag.

Susan leans into the field of astral garbage emanating from the driver. “How much?” she asks, glancing around the fragranced front seat. What sounds like teen pop plays innocuously on the radio, and there is a furry butterfly which hangs from the rearview mirror.

“Seventy dollars, eleven cents...” The driver puts her coffee mug into the cup holder and stops the meter. It’s all very casual; not a care in the world. She is a gorgeous entity, this woman of the ages.

Susan is now genuinely worried, and hastily gets the money from her wallet as both the storm and the taxi driver continue.

“...Your daughter is extremely intelligent. So much potential there, don’t you think? So much curiosity. So many questions. I saw it all. Really saw it, you know?” The stranger picks up her mug again, taking a sip of the contents. “Well, of course you do.”

She places four wet twenties on the dashboard and then Susan slams the door of the cab shut.

Teresa runs by her mother, deftly cutting through the rain as if avoiding every drop, carrying what appears to be all of her bags with little effort. In contrast, Susan cannot move at all, the soaked wood of her being turning to stone. The cab pulls away, soon lost into the electric grey horizon, leaving the mother-of-one standing in the square of her driveway.

“Come on, Mom!” Her daughter beckons her inside with all the power in the world but Susan cannot move. Not right now.

Teresa smiles, waiting.