FOUR

FOUR

NEAR BEDTIME FOR THE kiddos — at least this day can't get any worse.

"Fourteen times twelve," says David, sitting on the couch in the family room off the kitchen, the Monday Night Football game on but muted.

"One sixty-eight." Grace answers almost immediately, while texting on her phone.

"How?"

"Fourteen times ten is 140; fourteen times two is 28; 140 plus 28 is 168."

"Sixteen times thirteen."

Like David, Grace is a math whiz, taking double-advanced math this year with the seventh graders, a year above her. She takes after me in looks — fair-haired, green eyes — but has David's brain. David does complex math in his head all the time, for fun, he says, geek stuff, but no ordinary brain is drawn to such mental machinations.

Lincoln has returned to the kitchen table, a long string of cheese stretching off his bite of take-out pizza. Yep, I bailed on dinner. (I have a gremlin on my shoulder I call Chill Mom, who assured me it was okay that I had to work late and pick up food to go.)

"Whoever invented math was not a nice person," my son says.

David leans his head back on the couch cushion, turned toward Lincoln. "Don't think of it as an invention. Think of it as a discovery. Math is part of our world, like nature. Somebody just figured out how it operates. It's how we explain the world, like science."

"Why you own a pub is beyond me," I say, as I often do. He'd be a perfect math teacher — the enthusiasm, cornball humor, wicked knowledge — or a perfect financial whiz, playing the market and inventing algorithms. But since the day when, eight months after I met him, he saw that vacant property located four blocks off the interstate and decided to open a pub — Hemingway's Pub, natch — it's all he's done.

David seems content, but watching him light up when he enters the world of numbers, I wonder if he's following his true calling. Life's short, after all. Money's great, but as they say, if you do what you love, you won't work a day in your life.

(As if I'm one to talk.)

David bounces off the couch and picks up a Nerf football, drops back to pass. "Be honest," he says. "Do you think it's too late for me to try out for quarterback for the Bears?"

"Yes," the kids reply in unison.

"You're too old, Daddy," Grace notes. "You're forty-two. That means you've turned three thirteen times."

"Well, yes — wait — how many times?"

"Fourteen times," Grace says, correcting herself. "Fourteen." She smacks her forehead. Grace doesn't like being wrong. She scored 99 out of 100 on a science test last week and stewed all weekend about the one question she got wrong. I'll need to keep an eye on that perfectionist trait as she grows older; it could be as much of an albatross as an asset.

"Okay, fine." David drops the football. "There's always my dream of being a singer and dancer." He does a bit of Astaire, complete with the nimble footwork. "What do you think?"

"I think you should never do that in front of my friends," Grace deadpans.

"I'm gonna do it tomorrow," he says, walking over to her, tickling her. "I'm going to follow you to school dancing and singing. I'm going to announce, ‘I am Grace Bowers's father, and I'm sorry, but I just gotta dance !'"

"All right, bed, now," I say, ready to put this bizarro day behind us.

A half hour later, Lincoln nestles into bed under the covers. David strokes his hair. "Excited for the Justin Fields costume Mommy got you?"

I'm lucky he has a costume at all. Consumed as I was over the last two weeks with a trial before Judge Donnelly, my professional– family life balance askew during that time, I desperately searched the internet last Friday night for a youth-size Justin Fields jersey, finally finding one that would arrive before Halloween for the low, low rush delivery price of $39.99. I threw in mini shoulder pads and pants for good measure to appease my maternal guilt. Turns out you can put a price on love.

"Tomorrow will be fun, buddy." I tuck him in and kiss him on the cheek.

"Daddy?" he says, as David pulls away. "Do you remember your mommy and daddy?"

Ever since David pulled that man out of the Cotton River, we've had variations of this conversation at night. I wonder if David's brush with death affected the kids more than I realize, the notion of their father's mortality.

"Oh, a little bit," says David.

David's parents died in a house fire in Youngstown, Ohio, when he was four years old. Having no siblings or next of kin, David was placed in foster care. He had three "families," so to speak, before he turned eighteen.

"Were you scared in the water?"

"In the river when Mr. Peterson's car went in? Yeah, sure, Linc, I was scared. But you know what kept me going?"

Lincoln shakes his head.

"Knowing that you and Grace and Mommy were waiting for me. Knowing that I'd never leave you guys." He gives Lincoln another kiss on the cheek. "Never, ever."

Careful, warns Cautious Mom, the gremlin on my other shoulder, who competes with Chill Mom. Don't make promises you can't keep. What if you have a brain aneurysm or get hit by a truck and poof, you're gone?

But David doesn't go to such dark places. He sees the world in bright, vivid colors.

I walk into the master bedroom. David comes in, too. I hear the click of the lock on the bedroom door. I know what that means.

"Grace isn't down yet," I say.

"She'll be in her bathroom for half an hour at least." His hands slide underneath my shirt. I feel myself reacting. David gets me. He gets me like no man ever has. "Say yes," he says, "and I'll give you the best ninety seconds of your day."

"Oh, the faux modesty." But he's right about one thing — if we wait for optimal conditions, we'll be too tired to do it. Lock the door, make it quick and quiet, and if Grace knocks, make up an excuse. "Okay, sailor," I say, whipping down the comforter to climb into bed.

We both see it, to his left and my right, through the bedroom window overlooking the backyard. A burst of flickering light. A flame.

Fire.