“I respect that, your love and your loyalty. I will spend time getting to know him, his disease, and routine.”
“What are you saying?” I ask, trying not to read into this too much.
“I told you I’m not sleeping without you. You stated you had a whole wing. He needs you. Consistency, routine, I’ve read about it, on the plane there and back. I will learn more.”
I wake in a bed that smells like us, but he isn’t in it.
The sheets are still warm on his side. I stare at the ceiling for a second, listening. Nothing. No shower or footsteps, just the quiet hum this place has always had.
I check my phone. Six in the morning.
He could’ve left already. He could’ve slipped out after we showered together, skin still damp, both of us a little wrecked and smiling in that stunned way you do after something shifts inside you. Mind-blowing doesn’t even begin to cover it, and I fell asleep within seconds.
When I sit up, that thought evaporates. His duffel is on the floor by the door.
The tightness in my chest loosens as I pull on my pajama pants and robe, slide my feet into slippers, and pad quietly into the hallway.
Then I hear voices. I slow down without thinking. They’re low, but I’d know both anywhere.
Chess pieces click softly somewhere ahead, that specific sound of wood on wood that belongs to only one room in this house.
I lean against the wall and listen.
My father speaks first. Clear, present,a good day.“Are you sure?”
There’s a pause. Long enough that I hold my breath.
“Yes,” Aleks answers with certainty.
Another pause. I picture my father studying the board, fingertips resting on a piece as it might answer for him. “How do you know?”
Aleks doesn’t rush when he answers; his voice is quieter, but steadier than anything I’ve ever heard. “I feel it in here,” he says. “And I’ve never felt that before.”
My hand comes up to my mouth before I can stop it, and the board clicks again.
My father exhales. “Please don’t take her away from me. Not yet.”
Something tightens behind my ribs. Not fear. Recognition.
Aleks answers immediately. “She won’t leave you.”
Another piece moves.
“And I won’t let this ruin her chance at happiness,” my father says, softer now. Protective in that way that has always been just for me.
Aleks’s reply is gentle, almost reverent. “How could you separate the moon from the sun?” he says. “She needs both.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“She’ll never have to choose,” he continues. “Not ever.”
Silence stretches. Heavy. Sacred.
Then my father speaks again. “Would you stay here with her, then?”
“If she asked me to,” Aleks says, without hesitation, “I would.”
I step back quietly, heart pounding so hard it feels like it might give me away. I retreat down the hall, press my back to the wall, and let myself feel it all at once.
