“Yes, how can I forget? You’re the queen of triple-word scores. You’d beat me like nine times out of ten.”
“So why did you keep playing?”
With a little shirk he says, “Because I hated losing. And the fact that I lost so frequently made my victories all the sweeter.”
“You’re competitive, Dell. We both are. It’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you. Which is why…”
He raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
I’m about to say something else, but another question comes to mind. “Do you want to win?”
“Win what?”
I smile. “Well, take your pick. Do you want to win in our marriage? Do you want us to win? Do you want to win me over?” I pause, looking right at him. “Do you want to win me?”
“You’re the prize?” he says with a wry smile. I haven’t seen that smile in a long time. I’ve missed it.
“Uh-huh.”
“Then yes, I want to win all those things you said. I certainly don’t want to lose you.”
“Good, because I want to win too, which is why I want to challenge you to a game.”
“Of Scrabble?”
“No. Not Scrabble.”
“What sort of game?”
I hold up the journal I’ve been reading: “The Winner’s Game.”
I can tell before he speaks that he’s skeptical. “Didn’t your granddad’s letter mention something about that? The one Cade found in the Altoids can?”
“Yes.”
“Emily, look, I’m serious about making things better between us. I want to work on it. But…a game? I was thinking we needed full-on counseling.”
“And maybe we do, but I think, first, this is a good place to start. It’s more than just a game, Dell. It’s motivation…to help us love like the verb. Maybe it’s crazy, but after reading my grandmother’s journal, I think this could really work for us, if we give it a try.”
His eyes are still skeptical. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
I nod, then stand up and motion for him to join me. “C’mon, I want to show you something.” I cross to the bedroom door, then lead him into the kitchen where the kids’ weekly score sheet is taped to the side of the refrigerator. Ann and Cade both have one point below their names. Pointing to it, I ask him if he knows what it is.
He shrugs. “A chore chart?”
“A chore—? Seriously?”
“I don’t know, maybe those marks are the number of jobs each kid has done.”
His comment makes me chuckle. “Our kids are lazy, but not that lazy.” I pause, getting more serious. “Do you remember the ‘nude books’ we found in Grandma’s room? The box full of notebook scorecards? Well, this is part of our children’s scoring system. They’ve been playing the Winner’s Game for two weeks already.”
“Seriously?”
“Uh-huh. And you know what? I’ve seen real changes in them. Nothing earth-shattering—I mean they’re still kids. But the petty fighting has gone way down, and they’re getting much better at biting their tongues when someone does something they don’t like. And believe it or not, they’re actually looking for subtle little ways to do nice things for each other.”
Finally he seems quasi-interested. “Like what?”
“Well, like yesterday morning, after I told Cade to put away his sleeping bag, I came through the living room and saw Ann putting it away for him while he was still in the bathroom. Then she went and gave herself a point. And Cade asked me at least four times last week if I had any spare pieces of chocolate, because he wanted to put them on his sisters’ pillows. Eventually I ran out, so he scrounged around until he found chunks of baker’s chocolate in the pantry. I think he gave himself a point for every individual piece of chocolate he delivered—bitter or otherwise—but at least he felt good doing it.”
Dell laughs lightly. “And Bree? Has she been playing along too?”
“Sort of,” I tell him, bobbing my head from side to side. “I’m not sure what her strategy is. As you can see, she hasn’t won a week yet. But she assures me that she has a plan. Of course, she was slightly more temperamental to begin with, but even with her I’ve noticed a marked change in how she treats Ann and Cade. She may not be winning, at least in terms of points, but she is trying, and that’s really the purpose.”
He studies the score sheet on the refrigerator for a few seconds, then looks up. “So if we were to play, what would we be playing for?”