He simply waited.

He drank his coffee.

Watched birds.

Let Miles think.

It was as though Arthur lived comfortably inside silence and didn’t mind sharing the room.

I think about that often now.

How rare it is to meet someone who can sit quietly beside another person without demanding anything from the quiet.

One afternoon, Miles sacrificed three pawns within ten moves.

Arthur leaned back.

“Do you have something against the infantry?”

“They’re useless.”

“Interesting.”

“They only move one square.”

“Usually.”

“And they can’t move backward.”

“Correct.”

“They’re terrible.”

Arthur picked up one of the captured pawns.

“What happens if this terrible little piece reaches the opposite side of the board?”

Miles shrugged.

“It gets stuck?”

Arthur looked so deeply offended that I laughed from my bench.

Then Arthur taught him about promotion.

He placed a queen, rook, bishop, and knight in front of Miles.

“When a pawn makes it all the way across,” Arthur explained, “it can become one of these.”

Miles stared.

“A pawn can become a queen?”

“Yes.”

“That’s stupid.”

Arthur laughed until the laugh became a small cough.

“Why?”

“Then why doesn’t everyone just use pawns?”

Arthur placed the pawn carefully in the center of the table.