Josh Malerman
IT was that time of year again when I had to pretend I didn’t know math.
We were at the dinner table, me on my side, my elbows barely reaching the wood, Brad across from me with his silly spiky hair. Dad was to my left and Mom to my right, but I don’t like talking about rights and lefts because directions scare me: they’re a little too much like math.
How many of us were there?
I don’t want to say.
We were eating Chicken Kiev, my favorite, because the butter squirted out of the bird and it made me laugh and I loved the taste and because Mom said, “Amy, I’ve never met someone who loved something like you love Chicken Kiev.” That’s nice, isn’t it? The smallest compliment.
But let’s not talk amounts.
Let’s talk family. And dinner. And the television on in the living room, where Buckle Up was playing silently, Dad having put the record on the machine, the one with all the strings and swells and slow moods. The light of the TV was all over Mom, painting her blue, as there was no wall between the kitchen and the living room, that being my favorite place in the house, the exact spot where a wall might’ve been, but wasn’t.
Brad didn’t like Chicken Kiev, but Brad was “late to everything,” Dad once said and Mom said, “Is it okay to know what late means?”
I remember that discussion. They didn’t think I heard them, but in a house as small as ours, you hear. Mom was worried Dad had used math. Late, she said, implies time passing. I remember that. Dad said it was okay to know time. Mom said it wasn’t, though.
It was harder for them to pretend they didn’t know math because they grew up with it.
“And green beans,” Dad said, putting some on my plate. I loved green beans almost as much as I loved Chicken Kiev. It was like a birthday dinner but of course I couldn’t be sure when my birthday was.
We ate, quiet, for a while. Brad didn’t speak much anyway. I think it’s because his friend Melanie got in trouble. I would be quiet too if I kept remembering the time my friend told me she knew math. What was Brad supposed to do with that secret? He did what he was supposed to do.
He turned Melanie in.
“We need more milk,” Mom said. That was often how our conversations began. Little things. What we needed. What we didn’t have. What we’d used.
“Okay,” Dad said.
“And other things.”
“Okay.”
Yes, half of Mom’s face was painted blue by the television. I remember worrying about that word: half.
I was so busy stuffing my face, I hadn’t noticed the mood was off. Brad wouldn’t look me in the eye. Which was okay. Which was normal. But Mom and Dad, there was something there, too. The way they kept looking across the table, asking if I was okay, asking if I wanted more, then going quiet again. They didn’t even get up to flip the album when it came to a stop. One of them usually said, Wanna play the other side?
Because who would be caught saying they knew which side was which?
“The car sounds funny,” Mom said. She knew all these things. What we needed. What sounded funny. And there was always hesitation, before every time she spoke, when she considered what she was going to say. I overheard Dad tell her once she was thinking too much about it. When they said we couldn’t know math, they didn’t mean we couldn’t know when it was midday. Mom shushed him when he said that. But Dad continued, saying there was math in everything, literally everything, and people couldn’t be expected to not know that a couple made two.
Mom freaked out when he said that. Hurried Brad and me into the basement. Locked the basement door. Waited. While we were down there, she talked about colors. She sat on a stool under the light bulb and talked about moods and feelings and colors, all stuff that Dad would call safely vague. Dad was upstairs then. Mom was waiting to hear sirens, I think. Waiting for someone to come ask Dad what he knew about a couple being equal to two.
He was angry up there. Pacing. Dad didn’t yell, wasn’t a yeller, but you knew when he was upset. He couldn’t sit still. He talked to himself, but really he was talking to Mom, knowing we could hear him down below. Brad hadn’t done what he was supposed to do with Melanie at that point in our lives, so he was talkative still, talked with Mom about colors.
But I listened to Dad. I heard him say, It’s in everything. Age, time, space, outer space, nature, work, rest. Everything!
Except feelings, Mom said, her head cocked to the ceiling, and we knew she was talking to Dad whether or not Dad could hear her.
That night was bad. But nobody came to ask Dad what he meant by two.
“More beans,” I said. I couldn’t get enough of them. The chicken, the beans, and the bread rolls. Oh my. Mom worried I ate too much but Dad said no, it was fine, it was good, it was nice to see.
“Oh, wait,” Dad said, getting up from the table. He went to the refrigerator and came back with a pitcher of grape juice.
“Oh,” Mom said, “I almost forgot.”
“Amy,” Dad said. “Your favorite.”
“Is it my birthday?” I asked.
Brad looked up then, only for a moment. Mom and Dad exchanged a look and then Mom smiled my way and it looked like her face might crack in half.
That word again: half.
That’s math.
It’s in everything.
“Do you really not know what today is?” Dad asked. “It’s okay if you don’t.”
“No,” I said. “Stop being silly.”
“Amy, honey,” Mom said. “Tonight’s your test.”
I set my fork down.
Oh.
Had it been a year? What was a year anyway?
“We received a letter a few…” She considered how to put it. “We received a letter recently. Remember I told you about it?”
Dad looked like he was going to cry.
“Oh yeah,” I said. I picked up my fork and started eating. It was so good I thought I could eat that dinner forever. “When are they coming?”
“Well,” Dad said, pouring the grape juice. “We don’t know that kind of thing. Not exactly.”
“Right.”
Brad’s fork scraped the plate and it sounded bad.
“Tonight,” Mom said. That smile again.
Dad sat down.
“So,” he said. “Amy. You know we gotta ask you a question before they come by. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And you know what that question is, right?” Mom asked.
“Yes.” Then, “You need to ask me if I know math.”
Silence. Not because I’d said something shocking. I was right, this was the question. But because now that I’d said it, it had kinda been asked, and they were waiting for the answer. Even Brad.
How could they not know if I knew math, right? Well, I think it has to do with kids being young. And getting into things. And who knows what they do all the time and what they think and what they pick up, too.
Maybe even what they teach themselves.
That’s what I’d done. I’d learned math on my own. It wasn’t from a book. It was from listening, closely, to Mom and Dad. They used numbers all the time, even when they didn’t mean to. Dad was right, of course, there was math in everything. And if you kept quiet and listened, you could hear it. Math. Want an example? One night in Mom and Dad’s bedroom, a storm outside, Brad and I were in bed with them. And Brad asked if we could stay that way forever, if we could stay in their room and make jokes and watch television. Dad said, no, Brad. One day you won’t need us. One day you’ll be on your own two feet.
You catch that? Of course you did. One day. Two feet. Brad had two feet. I supposed that meant I did, too.
Mom didn’t catch that one. She didn’t catch a lot. Like when I asked if we could get a dog and Mom said, Can you imagine a four-legger in this tiny house?
Four.
The numbers came to me like this, over time. And I was open to them. I learned two, four, seven, three, nine, one, eight, five, six in that order, I think. I don’t know for sure if there is an order. I think there is. Because I know we have eight shoes. Two each. See? That’s math. Mom used to smile and ruffle my hair and tell me I was cute the way I liked to play with all our shoes. But I was adding. I was subtracting. I was learning there on the carpet. I wondered how Melanie learned math. I wondered what she looked like when she told Brad she did.
“No,” I told them. A lie, of course, but I didn’t want them to have to do what they were supposed to do. And not just because I didn’t want to be taken away… I didn’t want Mom and Dad to become quiet like Brad became quiet because of doing what he was supposed to with Melanie. So:
“No. No math.”
“That’s good,” Dad said.
But they exchanged another glance, and I knew they knew.
“Is there dessert?” I asked.
“Of course,” Dad said. “Are you done with the chicken?”
“No. Not at all. I just wanted to know.”
“Amy, honey,” Mom said. “Can I ask you another question?”
“Yes.”
“How many forks are you holding?”
Yes, they knew.
“I don’t know,” I said. “My fork.”
Brad was staring at me now. Mom and Dad couldn’t stop with the worried glances across the best dinner of my life.
“Amy,” Dad said. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
He held up three.
“Don’t do that,” Mom said.
“Come on,” Dad said.
“Please,” Mom said. “Use a different example.”
Terrible silence then. The kind when you knew Dad felt really bad inside.
“How many windows are in your room, Amy?” Dad said.
“Just stop it,” Mom said.
She got up and went to the refrigerator and opened the door. Dad eyed me, sadness all over his face. Worry. He looked like he still wanted an answer.
The answer was one.
“It’s just the window,” I said. “I don’t know.”
Dad nodded but he kept his eyes on me as Mom came back from the fridge and said, “We need cheese.”
I think Mom did this, took stock without numbers, to constantly prove to herself (and the world) that she didn’t know math. Because if she and Dad didn’t, how could Brad and I?
“This is the best meal of my life,” I said. I gobbled up more chicken and beans, stuffed half a roll in my mouth, and washed it all down with grape juice.
Mom sat down again. Half of her in blue.
“How many shoes are we wearing?” Brad said.
So sudden. So mean.
I turned red. I’ve never been able to stop myself from turning red. Mom and Dad saw it and I felt the entire room get hot and I cried. Through the tears I saw anger on Brad’s face. Guilt, too. Then he was crying and Mom was at my side, kneeling on the carpet while Dad had a hand on Brad’s shoulder.
“We talked about this, Brad,” Dad said. He sounded scared. “You promised not to do it again…”
“Amy,” Mom said. “We saw the drawings. We saw the numbers.”
Can people freeze? Even without cold weather?
I froze.
One of them found the papers. Brad?
Had to be. I knew I shouldn’t have kept them in the drawer in the playroom. I knew I shouldn’t have written it down. But math isn’t easy when it’s only in your head. Mom looked to Dad and Dad pulled the papers from his pocket and I turned even more red because they knew I’d lied.
They knew I knew math.
Dad went to the record machine and flipped the album and came over to my side of the table and knelt there, too. Mom on one side, Dad on the other, but I don’t like to say right or left.
“Listen,” Dad said. “Tonight, you’re going to learn an important lesson. Okay?”
I nodded but I didn’t feel good. I kicked at Brad under the table, but my legs didn’t reach him and all I did was kick the table and knock over my juice.
Dad was sweating.
“Stop it,” Mom said. “You listen to your dad right now. This is the most important conversation of your life, Amy. Okay?”
But it wasn’t okay. They’d caught me lying. I couldn’t stop turning red.
“I’m gonna tell you why it’s good that you lied,” Dad said.
This surprised me.
“Good?” I said.
“Yes. Very good. There’s no changing what’s been done, okay?” He was talking quiet, his mouth near my ear. “You learned it, that’s what happened. No changing it.”
He got quieter with each word.
Is that math?
“You lied,” he said. “And you did a good job of lying. If we didn’t know better, your mom and I might have believed you.”
Dad looked to Mom. She didn’t look like she might’ve believed me.
“And when they come tonight?” Dad said. Now his lips did touch my ear. “You’re going to lie again.”
I looked to Brad, saw he was still crying, pretending to eat now, though. The chicken on his plate looked good. The whole meal. So good.
It’s what I’d planned on doing, of course. It’s what I was going to do. But Dad, Mom, Brad; it’s not what they were supposed to do. They were supposed to tell them I knew math.
“Yes,” Mom said. Just like that. Urgent. Her lips touched my other ear. “You’re going to pretend you don’t know math.”
I didn’t tell them I did that last time, too. Did they know? Could they tell how old the paper was, the paper in Dad’s pocket?
“Burn it,” Mom whispered.
The album played.
Dad nodded.
He got up. Went to the stove, already on for the chicken, put the pages inside. Despite everything that was happening, it made me sad, the idea of all that being burnt up. That was an amazing time for me. Me and the shoes in the playroom.
Then Dad was back beside me and both his and Mom’s lips were touching my ears.
“Their questions will be harder.”
“They’ll try to trick you.”
“Answer like you answered me before.”
“You don’t have to answer fast.”
“Take your time.”
“Not too much time.”
I smelled the pages burning.
“Hey,” I said.
But there was a knock at the door.
Mom shot up. Brad wiped the tears away. Dad kissed my ear before rising.
“I’ll get it,” Dad said.
I looked to my plate. To the chicken, beans, bread. The best meal of my life.
Mom sniffed the air. Looked to the oven.
“Hello,” he said. “We were just having Amy’s favorite meal. Come on inside.”
There were six of them. Sorry, but there were.
They dressed like they dressed last year. Shirts and ties. Coats and hats. No beards. No rings.
I worried they might be able to tell I knew what zero meant.
“Evening, ma’am,” one of them said to Mom. Mom nodded.
Dad and Mom hated these people. They wanted to kill these people. They would if they could.
Brad kept his eyes on his plate.
“Do you mind?” the man said. He wore glasses. Removed his hat. He was older than Dad.
Is that math?
“Not at all,” Mom said.
But she did. You could hear it.
The man picked up Mom’s chair and brought it over to me. Another man sat in Dad’s chair. Another stood by the door. Another stood by the front window. Another stood where there was no wall between the kitchen and the living room. And the other went deeper into the house.
See? Six.
“Amy,” the man with glasses said. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
He held up one.
I looked at it. Saw the wrinkles where his finger bent. Counted those, too.
“I don’t know,” I said. I laughed a little. “It’s your finger, I guess.”
“How many people are in your family?”
I looked to Mom and Dad. Brad. They all looked back. There was sweat at Mom’s hairline.
“I don’t know,” I said. I giggled nervously. “They’re my family is all.”
This one I didn’t know.
“I don’t know. I’m a kid.”
“How many hours do you sleep?”
This one I sort of knew. Because Mom and Dad talked about time more than they realized they did. They said things like afternoon and midnight and you could start to work your way out from there.
“I don’t know. I sleep.”
“Are you afraid of the two men in your living room, Amy?”
He almost tricked me. He was so close. I looked to the man on the couch but stopped myself before looking to the one by the window. That would mean I knew two, right?
“Two?” I said.
I shouldn’t have said it. I was being obvious. I should’ve just said I don’t know.
“How many times does Mommy tell you she loves you at night?”
Almost got me again. One. She said it once. Every night.
“I don’t know. I love you, Mommy.”
She looked away. I saw more sweat on her cheeks.
The man who stood where there was no wall sniffed the air. He looked to the oven.
“What’s in there?” he asked Dad.
Dad looked to the oven.
“Where? The oven?”
The man on the couch spun to look. They all did. Even Brad.
“Yeah. The oven.”
“We made chicken,” Dad said. “Amy’s favorite.”
“That’s not chicken,” the man said.
Then the man who was in Dad’s chair was up and he went to the oven and he opened it and he looked inside.
Is there a number for when numbers don’t end? For time going on and on and on? It felt like he looked into the oven for that long.
“Nothing,” he said.
Zero.
“One more question,” the man with the glasses said.
“Good,” I said.
The room went quiet.
They all looked at me. Everyone.
“Why is that good?” he asked.
And I knew he’d tricked me.
I’d showed him I knew what one more meant. I turned red. I couldn’t stop it. I’ve never been able to stop from turning red.
“Amy?” Dad said.
The man by the oven shook his head no at Dad.
“Amy?” Mom said.
The man who stood where the living room met the kitchen held up a hand to keep Mom quiet.
The man in the glasses, though, he just waited for my answer.
“Amy?” he said.
“I don’t know why good,” I said. “I just said it is all.”
The man on the couch made the music on the record machine stop.
“Amy,” the man with the glasses said. “Do you know math?”
I did know math. I knew it and I liked it, too. It was fun, counting the objects in the house, taking one away, counting them again. It was fun, thinking of things in halves and wholes, as nine, eight, five. It was fun, measuring things in the house by shoes. Stacking the shoes, marking the wall, stacking them again, until I’d reached as tall as me. I was nine shoes tall, four times over. Isn’t that fun? Dad told Mom once that we couldn’t know math because math was science’s older brother. Brad was my older brother. Sometimes I worried I didn’t know Brad.
“Does anybody in this room want to do what they’re supposed to do?” the man in the glasses asked.
But he only waited. Waited for my family to answer him.
“What do you mean?” Mom asked. “Amy doesn’t know math.”
But the man just looked to Dad.
“This is madness,” Dad said. “Amy doesn’t know math. She’s a child.”
He looked to Brad.
“And you? Do you want to do what you’re supposed to do?”
Brad looked to me, looked to his fork, looked to the man with the glasses. I could tell he was thinking of Melanie and the time he did what he was supposed to do.
“Amy doesn’t know math,” Brad said.
The man with the glasses stood up. He put his coat on. The other men did the same.
“Thank you,” the man with the glasses said. “For having us.”
Then they were out the door. And Dad closed the door behind them.
There were six. Now zero.
We sat in silence. I looked at my plate. The best dinner of my life. Chicken Kiev and beans and dinner rolls. Grape juice, too, but spilled across the table.
Dad went to the record machine.
“How about dessert?” Mom said. Her voice shook when she spoke.
“Yes,” I said. “Dessert.”
Brad stood up.
“Brad?” Mom said.
“Brad?” Dad said.
I looked at my plate.
“I’m doing what I’m supposed to do,” Brad said.
“Brad!” Mom shouted.
But Brad was already out of the kitchen. Dad must’ve ran there because they fought near the front door. Then Mom was there, too.
I looked at my plate.
Dad shouted and someone hit someone and Mom screamed that Brad said he would never do what he was supposed to do again.
I looked at my plate.
The front door opened. Dad and Mom shouted.
I looked at my plate.
I thought how amazing it was, the chicken, the beans, the bread. There was even a little grape juice left in the glass. Enough for a sip, anyway.
Outside, Brad shouted to the men who had left our home. Sirens. Mom and Dad shouted, too. I heard my name. I heard “math.”
Brad did what he was supposed to do.
While I stared at my plate.
Even when the men came back inside. Even when they crossed the living room, heading toward me alone at the table, I stared at my plate.
Chicken Kiev. Green beans. Bread rolls.
It was the best meal of my life.
“She knows math,” one of them said.
One.
“They knew,” a second one said.
Second. Two.
Even as they carried me out, past where there was no wall between the living room and the kitchen, I stared at my plate.
“I love math,” I said.
And it felt good to say. Good like the meal.
The best meal of my life.