Seven years, no children, slim odds. Sometimes numbers are unforgiving

TOBY

I love numbers. They make sense in a way that nothing else does. One plus one will always, always equal two. Two will always be the first prime number. Four is always a perfect square.

And people wonder if I never get bored of accounting.

Why would I get bored when it all makes so much sense? Calculate your debits against your credits and that’s the amount you come away with. Numbers never lie.

Relationships, on the other hand? Harder to work with. Twice two might equal trouble if it’s two brothers and their wives who don’t get along. A simple equation that worked yesterday might blow up in your face tomorrow.

I’m grateful for people who don’t wait for tax-season madness. And for coffee, as I sip from the YOU’LL ALWAYS COUNT mug Shimon once picked up for me from a trip to the Rockies, and stare at the one file that refuses to make sense.

It’s our own.

For the second time, I compare our expenditures of the last twelve months. Then all our income.

There’s $3,000 missing.

I don’t usually make mistakes, but maybe I’m just nervous for our appointment tomorrow?

I print it all out, find a red pen, and do my calculations the old-fashioned way.

October, November, December. A $1,000 hole in each.

I stare at the wall above my working space. Which is an optimistic way of describing the little niche I create in the corner of our very cozy dining room/living area during the week.

Where would a thousand bucks disappear for three months in a row?

And how didn’t I notice?

But then I look at the clock and it’s 1:48 a.m. I still have to finish Deweck’s file, so I shove the papers into our mail pile, and the enigma into a mental file labeled HOME, and go back to the screen.

SHIMON

I talk too much when I’m nervous, and even though I know that, somehow, I just can’t stop.

Besides for a couple of “hmms” to show that she’s listening to me, Toby is silent in the passenger’s seat. She’s nervous too, pulling down the mirror flap to fluff her bangs, flipping it up again, snapping the clasp on her pocketbook open and closed.

I prattle, she clicks. After seven years of marriage, we know each other’s patterns under stress. Toby gets quiet, I make enough noise for the two of us.

We’ll have to discuss whatever it is the specialist has to tell us later anyway, so maybe we should just enjoy the ride.

“Mind passing me some gum?”

Toby opens the glove compartment and fishes inside.

“None here, you have a new pack somewhere?”

“Never mind, put it on your list and send me a reminder.”

I tighten my fingers around the steering wheel, stare ahead, and talk about the cat that got in the shul kitchen and ate Niederman’s herring.