Stella smiles. “I was wondering if you were going to invite him over at some point. Luke? You good with Hugo coming over?”
“I already said my peace with my fist. If everybody else is good, I’m good,” Luke says.
Before the next rainstorm hits, I squeeze in a beach run. When I make a detour to the marina to extend my invitation to Hugo, he accepts. He shows up an hour later, soaking wet, with a hostess gift of wine for Stella. I bite back the urge to tell him it’s only a game of Uno. The hostess gift is totally unnecessary but unsurprising, knowing this man the way I do.
We sit down to start the game and I sit next to Hugo and listen as the girls explain the rules of this particular set of Minecraft Uno cards. “And when you see this symbol, the order is reversed. And if you get the Creeper card you pick three but you can use it as a wild card later…,” instructs Cynthia.
I get the impression that Hugo already knows the rules of Uno, but he listens and smiles at the girls and asks intelligent follow up questions to make them feel like they are actually teaching him something. I feel my heart squeeze as I watch the way he interacts with them and doesn’t talk down to them.
We’re about half way through the first hand when I notice something odd. When the middle child, Cameron, who sits on Hugo’s other side, plays a “take two” card against him, Hugo doesn’t lay, and nods to me to take my turn. The girls correct him in unison. “You can play a card if you want!” they say.
Hugo looks confused. “But the rules of Uno say the player who has to draw cards loses his or her turn to play a card.”
The girls shake their heads simultaneously and stare at him like that’s the most horrid idea they’ve ever heard.
I touch his arm and explain, “No, in this house we play Compassionate Uno.”
He gawks at me, and I almost have to laugh; I’ve never seen this look on his face before. He looks completely discombobulated.
“What is Compassionate Uno?”
Stella says, “Some people are sticklers for the rules. Not so much with us.”
Hugo lays his cards on the table face down and takes a sip of his beer, then presses his thumbs into his eyes. “OK. This is just a little different from the way my family plays.”
I brighten up. “Oh, did you used to play this when you were a kid?”
He nods and swallows; boy, his Adam’s apple is doing a lot of work, for some reason. He gives a rueful laugh. “Yes, and they were ruthless.”
Luke speaks next. “Yeah, we just let people lay cards if they are forced to draw, it’s no big whoop.”
Hugo laughs again and shakes his head in wonderment as he lays down a card, like he’s being allowed to break some natural law of physics and he can’t believe it’s working.
The game continues for some time, and it starts to look as if Hugo might win. When he lays down his second to last card, he forgets to say Uno. When he ends up winning this hand, the girls clap like mad. Cameron actually gets up and hugs him. “You did really good, I’m so proud of you, Mister Hugo.”
He accepts the hug but it’s clear he feels a bit shocked. The look he gives me tells me he’s never once been hugged by a child and doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. I shoot him a confident smile, because it’s the dearest thing I’ve ever seen.
Suddenly, his face blanches. “Wait a minute,” he says. “I’m sorry, everyone. I forgot to announce Uno on my second to last card. I didn’t realize. I swear I wasn’t trying to cheat. We’ll have to call it a scratch for that hand.”
Everyone looks around at each other and back at him. “Hugo, it’s fine. Like I said, we’re not sticklers,” Stella says.
He protests and unfolds the rule sheet to read them out, pointing out that the winner must absolutely call Uno. “It’s the whole point of the game,” he says.
I try to give him a reassuring smile, but I’m starting to get a little worried that he’s sounding a bit strange about all this. “Sweetie, it’s OK. We forgot to call you on it so you still win. That’s just how we do it.”
Something snaps. Not in a bad way. The snap is somewhere deep inside; feelings are coming to the surface and he can’t identify what they are.
“Yeah, you won, fair and square,” Cynthia offers.
He smiles at her but his eyes look weird. “I’ll be right back,” he says, and before any of us can stop him, he bolts outside among the torrential raindrops.
Stella looks at me. “What the heck was that about?”
I shrug and shake my head. “I have no idea.”
Luke is looking wary, and the girls have already moved on and are dealing our second round, including a fresh stack of seven cards for Hugo. Lucille is the only one of us who seems to know what is happening. “That boy wasn’t raised right,” she says.
Outside, the rain is starting to calm down, but Hugo is already half way down the beach. I sprint after him. “Hey,” I say, out of breath by the time I catch up. “What’s going on? What happened?”