The Two-Family House(48)

The first time he read those books, all he wanted was to soak up the information as quickly as possible. Looking at the books with Teddy and Natalie so many years later, he understood what he should have been doing back then: enjoying the study of the subject.

It was only because of Teddy that he was able to do that now. It didn’t matter that the books his son found in the garage were much too difficult. It didn’t matter that he had never taught math to anyone before. What mattered was that Mort was sharing something he enjoyed with one of his children, perhaps for the very first time.

Mort had never been a father who sat down on the floor and played board games or drank pretend cups of tea. He didn’t kiss dolls and he didn’t sing lullabies. Mort hadn’t known how to talk to his daughters when they were little, and as they evolved into young women he found himself only more uncomfortable. When Teddy came along, Mort had hoped it would be different, but he had already fallen into bad habits. He thought baseball might bring them together, but Teddy was a tentative player, and Mort wasn’t exactly sure how to instruct him. Teddy was too young to play on his cousins’ team and too shy to ask any of the kids at school to be on theirs. Mort and Teddy listened to the professional games on the radio together, but as soon as the games ended, Mort ran out of things to say.

Every once in a while, Mort would bring Teddy to the factory so he could learn about the family business. But Teddy was still too young to be interested, and he mostly just sat at the receptionist’s desk and colored. Sometimes he watched the machinery, but it was loud and monotonous. When Mort stopped asking if he wanted to come along, Teddy never questioned it.

Then the children found the math book. Mort wondered whether Teddy would have had the courage to ask about it if Natalie hadn’t been there. He supposed it didn’t matter—she had been there, and Teddy was willing. Mort knew he would never be great at teaching his son how to hit or throw a baseball, but explaining arithmetic to him was something he knew he could do. The best thing was that Teddy seemed to enjoy it. Having Natalie close by seemed to give Teddy the confidence to ask Mort all of his questions.

“Dad, can you explain square roots again?”

“Absolutely. A square root of a number is a number which, multiplied by itself, gives you the original number. So the square root of nine is three because three times three equals nine.”

“Oh.” Teddy didn’t sound convinced.

“Let’s do it backwards. What is two times two?”

“Four.”

“Right. So that means the square root of four is two.”

“I think I understand.”

“Let’s pick a different number. Try sixteen. What do you think is the square root of sixteen?”

Teddy scrunched up his eyes to concentrate. “Four?”

“Yes! Because four times four is sixteen. Good!”

This is better than a home run, Mort thought.

Later that evening, when Teddy was in the bathroom, Natalie asked Mort another question. “Uncle Mort? There are really two square roots for every number, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean four is the square root of sixteen but negative four is also. Every positive number has two square roots, right?”

Mort nodded. “Yes, that’s true. A negative number times another negative number equals a positive number.”

“Good,” Natalie said. “That’s what I thought.”

She never lets Teddy figure out she knows more than he does.

Mort was used to being treated with a mixture of reverence and apprehension by his children, but Natalie was different. She wasn’t disrespectful, but she certainly wasn’t afraid of him. In fact, she seemed genuinely fond of him and comfortable in his presence in a way that most people were not.

“Uncle Mort, what do you like better, pie or cake?” she asked him one Thursday.

“Cake.”

“Exactly!” Natalie practically shouted. “Most people do. So why do books always use pies to show fractions? Why not cake?”

“Yeah!” Teddy chimed in. “I like cake better too.”

Mort didn’t skip a beat. “It’s the layer cakes that are the problem,” he said solemnly. “Layer cakes confuse the mathematicians because they have to multiply the fraction by the number of layers. That’s why they use pies.”

The children stared at him. Then they burst out laughing. “You’re so funny, Dad,” Teddy said.

No one’s ever said that to me before.

The next few months flew by for Mort. Teddy agreed to study with him on Sundays also, as long as they didn’t get too far ahead of Natalie. They calculated batting averages for Teddy’s favorite baseball players and the ERA of every pitcher in the league. Teddy’s work with percentages and decimals was far beyond that of a third grader. The old book was like magic—as long as it sat open between them, father and son could talk easily with each other.

Rose noticed the change and remarked on it to Mort one Thursday after Natalie had gone home. They were in the kitchen, and Rose was drying dishes.

“You seem to be having a nice time with Teddy lately,” she said. “Natalie too.” Rose hesitated for a few moments, then added, “Why don’t you try to get along like that with your own daughters?” She put away some glasses and closed one of the cabinet doors a little too forcefully.