“‘A little’ usually means you’re terrible,” Emmett said, the ghost of a smirk crossing his face.
“I can teach you.
But I’m not going to let you win.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“Saturday,” Emmett decided.
“If you actually show up.”
It was not forgiveness.
It was a crack in the door.
And Weston knew he had no right to ask for more.
What Emmett had done, in offering the chess game, was more sophisticated than anyone in that room fully registered in the moment — more sophisticated, probably, than the boy himself could have explained.
He had not forgiven his father; his face made that clear.
But he had found a way to test him that could not be faked.
Chess was the one thing Emmett trusted, the world with fixed and honest rules, and he had chosen it deliberately, whether he knew it or not, as the instrument of his father’s probation.
Because you cannot lie your way through a standing weekly commitment.