When

Prologue

   I’M NOT EXACTLY SURE WHEN I first started seeing the numbers. My earliest memories are filled with snatches of familiar and unfamiliar faces, each with a set of small black digits floating like shadows just above their foreheads. The clearest first memory I have of seeing them comes from a muggy summer morning when Dad was sitting across the table from me, already dressed for his mid-morning shift. I remember the blue of his shirt perfectly matching the color of his eyes. That morning the city traffic was loud, streaming in through windows fully open to allow for even the faintest breeze. I was probably three or four—four, I think—and he was showing me on a piece of paper how to draw numbers and what to call them.

   I already knew my shapes—circle, square, triangle—so I picked up on the lesson really fast, and I thought Dad was finally revealing the secret. The secret of why those odd little figures kept hovering right above everyone’s foreheads.

   He taught me one, two, and three; I was so excited. But the elusive number was nine. We went through so many others to get to it, and finally it had a name. I remember repeating it out loud—the last piece of the puzzle in place—and I pointed to him triumphantly and shouted, “Nine-two-three-two-circle-circle-four!”

   Then I laughed and laughed, and I remember thinking he’d be so proud of me for saying his numbers back to him. But when I’d settled down, I saw that he had the most puzzled look on his face. He was smiling with me, but also confused.

   The memory is bittersweet. I can still see his face so clearly in my mind, the blue of his eyes, the black of his hair, the crook to his nose, and those numbers permanently etched onto his forehead. Small black gravestones against a pale white landscape.

   It took us a couple of years to figure out what they meant. Actually, it took two years and one day too many.

   Ma was the first one to put it together. I remember it was a Tuesday, because in my first-grade class we had show-and-tell on Tuesdays. Jenny Beaumont (10-14-2074) had brought her collection of Beanie Babies for us to pass around the circle, and I’d fallen in love with a little chipmunk. I’d been holding it greedily when Mrs. Lucas (2-12-2041) had to leave the circle to answer the classroom phone and, almost before she’d turned to stare back at me with wide eyes, I’d known something bad was happening at home.

   She rushed me into my coat and told me to go with my Uncle Donny (9-30-2062), who was waiting for me in the principal’s office. I hurried down the hall to him, and the moment he saw me he scooped me up into his arms and ran to his car.

   He’d driven so fast down the streets, and I could feel the whole car vibrating with fear. We came through the door of the apartment to find Ma, pale and trembling as she sat on the edge of the couch and dialed Dad’s cell over and over and over. On the coffee table in front of her was a crayon sketch I’d made in kindergarten the year before of Ma, Dad, and me. I’d drawn in all of our numbers, and Ma had proudly tacked it up on the fridge, where it’d gotten buried under other artwork, coupons, and love notes from Dad.

   But that day, Ma had pulled the drawing down, circled the figure of my dad with a pencil, and while the TV broadcasted images of a standoff between a gang of drug dealers and the Brooklyn PD, she’d kept dialing and dialing and dialing.

   Donny sat down on the couch and pulled me into his arms, but all of his attention had been on that broadcast. I remember so vividly the images from a helicopter circling above a huge warehouse, the chopper sending shaky images of men that looked like ants crawling over the rooftop while small sparks of gunfire flashed repetitively from the muzzles of their weapons The news reporter kept saying there were multiple officers down, and even at six years old, I knew that scene meant terrible things for us.