The Gamemaster and the Reluctant Daughter By Luanne Castle
Once my father knew he was dying, he began holding court at the nursing home, delighting in the attention. As if each of his last days were his birthday, he begged, cajoled, or demanded each guest play a game with him. But the challenges were new. Because we played on the adjustable bed table, when Dad got excited over an exceptional hand, he moved so abruptly that the plastic oxygen tube unclamped from his nose. I gestured for him to push in the clip, but had to direct it for him. When I slammed my cards down in frustration, the table rolled toward my father who startled. I’d been avoiding Dad’s pale, drawn face. His head appeared to have grown smaller with illness, and perhaps by contrast, his ears—one of them with a raggedy edge—now stuck straight out like flags in a veteran’s cemetery. I couldn’t remember a time that games weren’t part of life with my father. When I was little, Dad took me along to his best friend’s house. They holed up in the study, slouched over the chess board, while I played The Barbie Game with the friend’s daughter. She was an arrogant two years older, and for some reason I always ended up dating red-haired Poindexter, while she went steady with Ken. As the men emerged from the study, I could tell by the expression on Dad’s face that he had lost, but he wasn’t about to give up on the only game he didn’t regularly win. We always went back the following week. I wasn’t going to give up either. By seven I was playing the box game Password with my parents. By eight I was a Monopoly regular.
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