Chapter 24 #2
“And sometimes after going through a big scare,” I keep going, “your brain and body need time to recover, even after the scary part is over. It’s like when you run hard and your legs keep shaking even after you’ve stopped. But your mom is going to be okay.”
I make sure to look him in the eye when I say this, because I always trusted adults more when they did that and talked to me like I was an actual person.
“Anna’s friend is a doctor who specializes in talking to people in situations like this, and she’s going to help.”
He turns this over with his particular deliberate processing thing he does, like he’s testing my words for weak spots.
His fingers tap a rhythm against his thigh—three beats, pause, three beats, pause—and I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it.
He’s probably never noticed, even though he’s likely been doing it his entire life. An automatic reach for patterns when the world gets too loud. And he’s been doing it alone, with no one to tell him what it means or where he got it from.
I watch his hands and something in me goes very still.
“Okay,” he says finally, eyes still narrowed. It’s the reluctant provisional acceptance of someone extending credit. Then his expression clears. “What’s for lunch? I’m starving.”
Right. Feed the child. Gotta hit the basics of parenthood.
“Sure. Go get changed and I’ll make you a sandwich. Do you like grilled cheese?”
His eyes light up. “Yeah. Will you put pepperoni in it? Mom always puts pepperonis in it.”
“Oh. Well.” I nod and look toward the little kitchen. “I’ll see if there’s some in the fridge.”
“Fire.” He runs toward his bedroom, small wet footprints tracking down the hardwood behind him. I stand in the hallway, frozen for a second as I watch him go.
Kira arrives right as I’m pulling the grilled cheese—with pepperoni, a genius idea really—off the grill.
“Hey,” I greet her with a wave of relief.
She nods at me, gives a small wave, and I point her toward Harper’s room. She knocks and then steps inside.
“Did you know,” Bruiser says around a bite of sandwich, oblivious, “that if you make a rectangle using Fibonacci numbers for the lengths of the sides, and you draw a curve through it connecting opposite corners of the squares, you get a spiral that’s almost exactly like a nautilus shell?
Mom showed me pictures. She said nature is just math showing off. ”
I turn back to face him, leaning against the counter because my legs suddenly feel unreliable. “That sounds like something she would say.”
“She’s really smart,” he says, and his voice gets quieter, more uncertain. “She’s gonna be okay, right? She just needs some extra sleep? Like when you’re sick?”
The fear in his eyes guts me.
He’s trying so hard to be brave, but it’s clear Harper wasn’t the only one shaken by everything that happened. Everything in his world just got shaken up. He thought Z was his dad and just learned he’s a bad guy. He’s got to be terrified of losing the one constant left in his life.
I walk over to the island and sink onto the barstool next to him, close enough that our elbows almost touch.
“She’s going to be okay,” I say, pouring every ounce of certainty I can muster into the words. I say it like it’s a given. “Your mom is one of the strongest people I’ve ever known. She loves you more than anything in the world, and that’ll bring her back around to us.”
“To us?” He looks at me with those too-knowing eyes.
“Yeah,” I say softly. “To us.”
He considers this, taking another bite of his sandwich. “Mom said you were her brother. Is that why we both like numbers? Because we’re family?”
I choke a little on the sip of water I just took. Then the choke becomes coughing, and I take a longer drink.
“We are family,” I finally manage. “But your mom and I—”
I cough a few more times, then take another drink. “We were… uh… stepbrother and stepsister. Her dad married my mom when we were teenagers.”
He’s frowning down at his sandwich. “So you aren’t… real family?”
“We are real family,” I say firmly, aware that I’m navigating a minefield.
His eyes peek over at me with what I think is a look of hope. “So you and me can be family, too.”
“I hope so.” It’s the most honest answer I can give. “I really, really hope so.”
Bruiser nods slowly, processing.
Then he says, “Did you know that in a sunflower, the seeds are arranged in spirals that go both clockwise and counterclockwise? And the number of spirals in each direction are consecutive Fibonacci numbers, like fifty-five one way and eighty-nine the other way. And that arrangement is actually the most efficient way to pack seeds into a circular space because of the golden ratio. It’s like, mathematically perfect. ”
The subject change is jarring, but I recognize it for what it is—a nine-year-old’s coping mechanism, retreating into the safe world of facts and patterns when emotions get too complicated.
“That’s amazing,” I say and mean it. “So nature figured out the most efficient design millions of years ago just by trial and error?”
“Evolution is basically just math experimenting with different equations until it finds the ones that work best,” he says matter-of-factly. “Mom says evolution is the universe doing homework.”
I laugh, the sound surprising me. “That’s exactly what it is.”
We sit there in comfortable silence while he finishes his sandwich, and I watch him, trying to memorize everything—the way he chews thoughtfully, the small constellation of freckles across his nose, the cowlick at his crown that makes his hair stick up despite being damp, the way his feet swing in rhythm like he’s counting beats in his head.
This is my son.
My brilliant, pattern-seeking, Fibonacci-loving son.
He clearly gets his mathematical mind from me and his fierce spirit from Harper and somehow, he combines both into something entirely his own.
It’s like looking at a miracle.
“Can I have another sandwich?” Bruiser asks, interrupting my thoughts.
I smile, pushing off the barstool. “Absolutely. And you can tell me more about these Fibonacci numbers while I make it. I want to know everything.”
His answering grin is pure sunshine breaking through clouds.