I used to wonder where he’d take this. Code breaker. Safe cracker. CIA spy

It’s a frigid Shabbos morning, and we’re standing before a locked door.

I’ve opened this door a dozen times before, have observed others opening it, but suddenly, the combination has slipped my memory. I thought I knew the numbers — there’s logic behind this code — but I must be doing something wrong; the lock won’t release. I could knock, but everyone is two flights up; it would take some time for people to hear us, and there’s also the risk of skinned knuckles. I look at my son, who isn’t sure of the code either, and ask, “Can you open it?”

Of course he can.  His fingers speak the language of locks. He fiddles a bit, the lock yields, and we’re in.

For as long as I can remember, my son has had an uncanny knack with locks. In a backyard day camp he attended one summer, he figured out the code to the home that was hosting the camp. They had one of the easiest combinations — everyone loves those numbers, he told me, at the age of four. We were lucky his counselors found it amusing.

It was less funny when the locks he cracked opened doors that weren’t safe to enter, like the time he opened the door to the pool. We had a talk.

“Even though you know how to do it,” we told him, “it doesn’t mean you should.”

So his talent lay dormant, mostly unused.