It's been 3 years 2 months and 18 days since he last visited a church. Before that it was 14 years 9 months and 6 days. Math is simple and factual and easy to his overwhelmed mind, doing conversions for time zones, factoring in leap years and adding up the days passed, here and home, is relieving and scientific.
He's in the doorway of a little local church, rain beating down on his back and plastering his wild hair to his skull. He isn't even sure what flavor of Christian this place is, not that it matters anymore. Whatever it is, it's still holy, isn't it? It's been 3 years 2 months and 16 days since his daughter died.
Shivers rack his body and he crosses his arms over his chest, staring up the aisle that stretches away forever before him, lined by pews holding a few scattered, praying figures. Math is easier than prayers. He amends the last solution, it's been 3 years 2 months 16 days and 3 hours since they found the body. She died in the afternoon.
His mouth hangs open as he pants slightly in a desperate attempt to compose himself, and he tastes salt that can't be blamed on ocean air.
He's known he was going to be a father for 18 years 6 months and 4 days. They were early babies, and he knelt in a church and prayed after they were delivered safe and sound after 19 hours of labor. Prayed they would remain that safe while at the same time thanking whatever higher being cared to listen for their kindness and his two happy, healthy, screaming babies. A little spark of belief had remained then.
He's been a father for 17 years 11 months and 24 days. The aisle in front of him is starting to blur in his vision. There's a migraine beginning behind his left eye as his mind races through numbers. 24 days and 9 hours. Morning babies.
4 more days. Just, God, please, 4 more days. Let them have that. Let him be a father for 18 years. Maybe 4 days doesn't make a difference, but there's something about that. A milestone. As if an 18th birthday, celebrated or not, will be a victory over the cruel forces that so easily tear his family apart. He doesn't believe it will make his boy a man; that happened a long time ago, forced to grow up too fast, for all that he acts like a petulant child confined to his hospital bed.
Somehow even the numbers have doubled back to emotion. Numbers are supposed to be cold and detached, facts, unchanging. That's what hurts. He can't change the numbers, he can't give them 1 more day, 1 more year, he can't give himself the time to say goodbye. There aren't any words for a goodbye as permanent as this anyway.
"4 more days." Are the first words to leave his mouth in 3 hours, but he can't take that one down to minutes and seconds. "Just let him--please. Please."
Whether it's the rain or the wind or the pain, something is driving him to his knees, and he doesn't resist anymore. Slumps against the door frame and slides down, head dropping into his hands, palms coated wet and warm with tears as soon as they touch his cheeks. "Please." His mouth moves in endless repetition, whispering over and over. Begging someone he doesn't have the slightest spark of belief in anymore. "Change the numbers."
He's been a father for 17 years 11 months 24 days and not quite 10 hours when his phone rings and the world ends. The news is harder this time than the first. Parents shouldn't live to see their children die, and this makes two he's buried.
Numbers are simple and factual, cold and detached and easy. Numbers don't change for anyone.