As Milly reached for her first tile, she realized the truth. The AARP hadn’t given her Mahjong. It had given her a reason to keep playing. The tiles didn’t care if she saw them or felt them. They only cared if she was still in the game.

“ Sou ,” Milly declared, sliding a three of bamboo onto the felt. Her hand was a disaster—orphan winds and lone dragons. But Milly didn’t play to win. She played to remember.

Hesitantly, Milly sat down. Carol pushed a rack toward her. Milly reached out, her fingers trembling, and brushed the surface of a tile. It was a One Bam —a peacock. She could feel the raised dots, the subtle groove of the bird’s tail.

She stopped going to the Thursday game. She told Helen she had a cold. Told Rose she was visiting a niece in Oregon. The truth was too humiliating. Without her sight, she couldn’t read the Bams from the Craks . She couldn’t see the delicate etch of a Red Dragon versus a Green . She was a pianist without fingers.