The Queen who Fell Off

(WARNING: Depression, Violent Themes) - Mother brought home the magnetic chess set for my 13^th birthday. I squealed with delight when she unwrapped the metallic board with its 32 polished pieces, a miniature army that was mine to command.

And then she got started in earnest. Coming home at 7pm every evening, bleary-eyed and disheveled after her grueling shifts at the knitting factory, she would immediately light up upon coming to my room, seeing me sitting dutifully on the bed with the chess board all set up. The worry lines would disappear from her forehead as she sat down, becoming 10 years younger as she launched into a zealous description of the new Gambit that I would be learning that day.

“Pawn to E4, Knight to F6…”, she would say as she moved the pieces, making sure that I was following her technique closely. My mother drilled 2 hours of practice into me daily, until I was going to bed dreaming about rooks, bishops, kings and queens prancing about on a black-and-white checkered desert. As the months went on, I started becoming better. Pushed vigorously by my mother, I started seeing all sorts of patterns on the board that I had never seen before. I started watching Grandmaster videos on YouTube and spent hours practicing on Chess.Com.

The better I got, the more fanatical my mother became. If I had spared a couple of minutes to glance at her while she was coaching me night after night, perhaps I would have noticed the uncharacteristic frenzy in her eyes as she surveyed the board. Perhaps I would have noticed how hungrily she stared at my King when we were playing each other.

Perhaps I would have noticed that she was coming home from work every night looking increasingly worn down. The beginnings of a hunch were forming in her back, and the wrinkles in her face were becoming more and more pronounced. That a painful welt had erupted on her face where her boyfriend had hit her outside on the driveway.

Protected as I was, I noticed nothing out of the blue. All I knew was that my mother had instilled in me a fiery passion for the game of chess, a passion I was determined to capitalize on. I signed up for chess tournaments and exhibitions at my school, obliterating students, parents and teachers alike. And while I was busy basking in my newfound glory, I failed to notice that my mother was becoming increasingly distant from me. Each new medal or trophy I got was treated with just the slightest disdain. Riding high on my euphoria, I chalked it up to her high expectations of me, and resolved to push myself harder than ever.

Hunched, weary and more stooped than ever, my mother would literally stagger into my room after coming home from work, breathing heavily. She couldn’t relax until we started playing, and slowly, slowly, her back would straighten and a faint glow would return to her face. She wouldn’t speak to me, raising a finger every time I tried to say something, grunting monosyllabic answers to my questions. Her eyes would be trained on the board with an intensity so focused, they would become bloodshot.

But I admired her sage-like commitment to the game. To me, her intensity meant that I was getting better and better at the game. Indeed, I had started competing in tournaments with state-level masters, all of whom were at least 30 years older than me. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the growing bewilderment on their faces when as I started ensnaring their pieces, slyly checkmating their Kings in a series of shocking displays.

But all the newspaper headlines, journalists and press conferences marveling at “The Youngest Chess Prodigy in the State” weren’t enough to win my mother’s approval. Indeed, when I was granted a full-ride scholarship to play chess at the collegiate level, I recall the sides of my mother’s mouth puckering down into a frown, her eyebrows raised slightly.

“Good. Now let’s get back to playing”.

I couldn’t understand why my mother was so callous in light of my success. Surely, I had come further than she had ever hoped?

The months leading up to my college orientation brought a string of bad fortune for my mother. She was fired from her job – something about “being unable to meet performance standards” – and berated by the landlord for never paying rent on time. She had bad luck with her boyfriends too – all of them were controlling and abusive. She took it all in silence, and to her credit, never lashed out at me. But there were times when I would come across her in the living room with the chessboard set up, moving pieces while muttering wildly to herself.

Chess seemed almost … therapeutic for her, although I could never understand why.

And one day, for the first time in 5 years, 4 days before I was set to move into college dorm, she didn’t come into my room to play. Stunned though I was, I figured she was probably tired from jobhunting, and I resumed packing my suitcases.

The big day finally arrived. She drove me to the campus without saying much, gave me a quick hug and drove off. I remember pouting a little when I saw all the other mothers helping their children move in and decorate their rooms, but I quickly put it out of my mind because ... it was my first day of college!

I slowly started to get settled into the routine of things. I learned which lectures I could afford to skip, and which professors I could suck up to. I learned what routes could get me to class the fastest. But most important of all, I learned the names of everyone on the chess team, and made a group of passionate friends who never ceased to amaze me.

But nagging in the back of my mind during the twilight hours, I would think of my mother, all alone in that tiny apartment with her abusive boyfriend. I spoke to her on the phone a few times, but behind the façade of cheeriness, I could sense that something was … off with her.

But the nightmare didn't begin until 2 months later, when my phone rang out at 2 in the morning.

“Hello?”

“Jonah, I – I don’t know how to tell you this, but your mother – “

I didn’t wait to hear the rest. Hanging up, I yanked on a pair of shoes and called myself an Uber, promising to tip the driver $100 if he could get me back to the town in under 30 minutes. The whole way there, I was shaking, numb to my own pain.

I feared the worst when I saw a procession of ambulances and police cars by the house, but it didn’t prepare me for the sight of my mother lying on a stretcher, pale and lifeless, sporting deep gashes on her wrist with eyes that were half-closed.

The next 2 weeks passed in a state of detached incomprehension. The caresses of strangers whom I had never met, meetings with lawyers about my mother’s will, the college agreeing to defer my scholarship for a year so I could heal.

Only 1 event stands out clearly among the haze of memories.

A psychologist who I was mandated to see for therapy, who eventually convinced me to open up about my relationship with Mother.

“Well, she was … intense about chess. She was never happier than when she would be in front of a board, playing against me. I thought that chess was her reason to live.”

He nodded and started speaking.

“When you started winning fame, awards and scholarships for playing chess, did she start becoming more and more distant from you?”

I was stunned. “How could you possibly know that?”

He sat back and looked at me sympathetically.

“Well, it didn’t seem like she had control over anything else in her life. Chess let her create a new reality where she could win at something for a change.”