Episode 735: Inside

"What sound?" Lila asked, clearly in one of those moods where she was there, but not there.

"The kids laughing at that move in the other room. It’s just great to hear that happiness. It might be a good idea for you to join them Lilac, and have a laugh, too. You’re looking awfully serious about something."

"I’m fine."

She was so fine that she continued to trail after him into their bedroom while he changed shirts, hot on his heels as she had been ever since he’d returned home from work. Her behavior was incredibly odd, like a puppy sensing a storm, spinny and clingy; it wasn’t like her.

"Lila? Is everything okay? Is there something you needed to say?" Given her past infidelity, he asked the question with a certain dread.

"You know how you keep the books for your landscaping business on the laptop," she started.

It was a relief that she hadn’t cheated on him again, but still a problem. "Are you trying to tell me the laptop crashed?"

"No. No, it’s fine. I was just thinking though, what if one day it does crash, you’d totally freak. I mean, even with that program you get so stressed working on the financial stuff, so when I saw a community college catalogue in the mail today, it hit me that maybe if you tried a course to sharpen your math skills, you wouldn’t be all antsy over it every month."

"Yeah." Bowie nodded. "I know I’m not great to be around at times like that, I’m sorry, and taking a class, well, in theory that’s a really good idea, but in practice, me, sitting down to math homework every night, I don’t think any of you want to live with that person."

"You really don’t think somewhere deep down that if you got a better handle on it, you might realize that you love math?"

"Uh, no. Don’t tell the boys, I don’t want to set a bad example, but I seriously don’t envy them having to deal with numbers every day at school, math is about as far from my idea of a good times as it gets."

"But it is Nate’s idea of good time," Lila muttered.

Episode 736: Halfway There