Turn 201 of 233

Ask Kimo what he wants to learn next. Everything, he says. I try my best to deliver and I mostly succeed. What I don't know, we learn together

Lena is sitting against the balcony wall and Kimo is on the floor with his crayons and the crayons are the thing he has sorted by function and the function is the thing that is his system. The evening is the thing that is the warm and the warm is the thing that is the Florida and the Florida is the thing that lets them be here without clothes and without shelter and without anything but the concrete and each other. She watches him draw a fifth house on the maple board and the fifth is connected to the fourth by a bridge and the bridge is the thing he is labeling out loud — cable, tower, foundation, deck.

"Kimo," Lena says. "What do you want to learn next?"

He looks up and the looking up is the thing that is the immediate. There is no pause. There is no thinking. The answer is the thing that is already there, the way the foundation is already there before the building goes up.

"Everything," he says.

The word sits between them on the concrete the way a beam sits on a sill plate — load-bearing, centered, holding the weight of everything above it. Lena looks at her son and her son is 188 pounds and 53 inches and sixteen months old and he has just asked for everything and the everything is the thing she cannot give because nobody can give everything. But the trying is the thing she can do and the trying is the thing she will do.

"Okay," she says. "Everything. We start tomorrow."

Tuesday is electricity and the electricity is the thing Lena does not fully understand because the electricity is the thing that is the engineering and the engineering is the thing beyond the construction. She knows the wiring on the site — the Romex, the junction boxes, the breakers. She does not know the theory. So they go to the library and the library is the thing that has the books and the books are the thing she checks out — a basic electrical theory textbook and a guide to circuits and a picture book about Benjamin Franklin that Kimo picks himself because the cover has a kite and the kite is the thing he has never seen.

They sit on the balcony with the textbook open between them and the open is the thing that is the learning together. Lena reads the first chapter aloud and the reading is the thing that is the slow because the slow is the thing that is the understanding. Voltage is the pressure. Current is the flow. Resistance is the thing that opposes the flow. She reads a sentence twice because the twice is the thing she needs and Kimo watches her face and the watching is the thing that tells him this is new for Mama too.

"Mama doesn't know this one," he says. It is not a question. It is the thing that is the observation and the observation is the thing that is the accurate.

"No," Lena says. "Mama doesn't know this one. Mama knows how to run the wire. Mama doesn't know what the wire is doing inside. So we learn it together."

"Together," Kimo says. "Mama learn and Kimo learn. Both learn. Both dopamine. Both happy."

They build a simple circuit on the balcony floor — a battery, a wire, a small bulb from the hardware store. Lena strips the wire with her teeth because the teeth are the thing that is the tool when the tool is not there. She connects the positive terminal to the bulb and the bulb to the negative and the bulb is the thing that lights and the lighting is the thing that makes Kimo stand up.

"Light!" he says. "Power in wire. Wire in battery. Battery has power inside. Power come out, go through wire, make light. Mama, that is the circuit. Circuit is circle. Power go around and around and make light. Like earth. Earth go around and around and make day and night. Same pattern!"

"Same pattern," Lena says, and the saying is the thing that is the real because the real is the thing that is the boy seeing the circular pattern in a circuit and a planet and the seeing is the thing that is not taught. The seeing is the thing that is the Kimo.

Wednesday is plants and the plants are the thing Lena does not know because the plants are the thing that is the biology and the biology is the thing beyond the body. They go to the botanical garden and the garden is the thing that has the labels and the labels are the thing Lena reads aloud. Kimo touches a leaf and the touching is the thing that is the feeling of the veins and the veins are the thing he connects to the wiring.

"Leaf has veins," he says. "Veins carry water. Wire carry power. Same pattern, Mama? Pipe carry water. Vein carry water. Wire carry power. All carry something. All are paths."

Thursday is geology and the geology is the thing they learn from a documentary on the laptop and the laptop is the thing propped against the wall. Tectonic plates. Sedimentary layers. The way pressure turns sand into sandstone and sandstone into quartzite. Kimo watches the animation of plates colliding and the colliding is the thing he connects to the walls on the site.

"Plates push together," he says. "Plates make mountain. Like studs push together. Studs make wall. Push together make something new. Push is force. Force make structure."

Friday is music and the music is the thing Lena does not know at all because the music is the thing that was never in her life. She finds a basic theory website and the website is the thing that explains notes and scales and chords. She plays a C major chord on the laptop speaker and the playing is the thing Kimo listens to with his whole body — head tilted, eyes closed, humming the note back.

"Notes are building blocks," Lena says. "Like studs. You put them together in the right order and you get a chord. A chord is like a wall — individual pieces that make something bigger."

"Chord is wall," Kimo says. "Notes are studs. Scale is... frame? Frame hold studs. Scale hold notes. Same pattern, Mama. Always same pattern."

Lena sits on the floor and the sitting is the thing that is the looking at her son and the looking is the thing that is the seeing — the seeing that the boy is not learning everything because everything is the thing that cannot be learned. But the boy is learning the thing that is under everything and the thing under everything is the pattern and the pattern is the thing that is the same. Bridge to family to circuit to plant to plate to chord. Everything holds everything. The boy was right. The boy has been right since the first drawing.