It started with insomnia.
One night in January, a storm rattled the windows so violently that I couldn’t sleep. I wandered down to the kitchen for tea and found a light on in the library.
Don Baste sat in his wheelchair by the fireplace, a heavy blanket across his lap, staring into the flames.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“You didn’t.” His voice was low. “I don’t sleep much.”
An awkward silence settled between us. I turned to go.
“Stay,” he said.
It was the first time he had said it as a request instead of a command.
I sat in the armchair across from him. We listened to the fire crackle and the wind howl.
“Do you hate me?” he asked finally.
“No.”
“You should.”
“I know I should,” I admitted. “But I can’t seem to manage it.”
He let out a short breath that might have been a laugh. It was the first time I’d heard anything like it from him.
“Tell me about yourself, Clara.”
So I did. I told him about my mother, who died when I was fifteen. About the nights I spent in hospital waiting rooms, and how it made me want to become the person who sat beside the frightened. I told him about the child with leukemia who taught me how to play chess, and how I’d cried in the supply closet the day she passed away.
He listened without interrupting.
And when I finished, he said quietly, “Nobody has ever asked me about my childhood.”
