A Storm Between Turns

The Turn I Didn’t Take

1By the time the first hailstones struck our apartment windows, I had arranged my dominoes into a neat white fence. My cousin Zuri sat opposite me at the dining table, studying her tiles. I’m Ren, and until that afternoon, I considered winning the only interesting part of our weekly games. Outside, the sky had turned the color of a dented spoon. Inside, I was one turn away from proving that my cousin’s latest victory had been luck.

2A hard rattle swept across the glass. Zuri’s hand stopped above the table. “Was that a branch?” she asked. I gathered my tiles without answering. Dad came from the hallway and told us to move away from the windows. We carried the game to the rug beside the interior wall, leaving our chairs crooked behind us.

3For a minute, we tried to keep playing. The hail drummed against the building, then paused just long enough for me to hear Zuri counting under her breath. “You don’t have to pretend you’re not scared,” she said. I almost told her I wasn’t. Instead, I pressed a tile into my palm until its rounded dots left little circles in my skin. “I was hoping you couldn’t tell.”

4Before she could answer, thunder rolled through the apartment. My elbow struck our row of dominoes, scattering them across the rug. I waited for Zuri to complain about the ruined game. She turned one tile upright, then balanced another beside it. “New rules,” she said. “We build something that stays up.” I set a third tile across the first two. My hand shook, so she steadied the base without mentioning it.

5While the storm rattled on, our small structure grew into a crooked arch. We argued quietly about which piece belonged where, the ordinary kind of argument that left room for laughing. Eventually, the hail softened to scattered taps. Dad checked the weather update and said we could return to the table. I looked at the arch between us. “One more minute,” I said. For once, I had forgotten whose turn it was.