Nathaniel tosses his magical tablecloth over his shoulder. "A superhero," he says. "A new one."
Caleb is fairly sure they could muster up Superman on short notice. "What's wrong with the old ones?"
Everything, it turns out. Nathaniel doesn't like Superman because he can be felled by Kryptonite. Green Lantern's ring doesn't work on anything yellow. The Incredible Hulk is too stupid. Even Captain Marvel runs the risk of being tricked into saying the word Shazam! and turning himself back into young Billy Batson.
"How about Ironman?" Caleb suggests.
Nathaniel shakes his head. "He could rust."
"Aquaman?"
"Needs water."
"Nathaniel," Nina says gently, "nobody's perfect."
"But they're supposed to be," Nathaniel explains, and Caleb understands. Tonight, Nathaniel needs to be invincible. He needs to know that what happened to him could never, ever happen again.
"What we need," Nina muses, "is a superhero with no Achilles' heel."
"A what?" Nathaniel says.
She takes his hand. "Let's see." From his closet, she extracts a pirate's bandanna, and wraps this rakishly around Nathaniel's head. She crisscrosses a spool of yellow crime-scene tape Patrick once brought around Nathaniel's chest. She gives him swimming goggles, tinted blue, for X-ray vision, and pulls a pair of red shorts over his sweatpants because this is Maine, after all, and she is not about to let him go out half-dressed in the cold. Then she surreptitiously motions to Caleb, so that he pulls off his red thermal shirt and hands it to her. This she ties around Nathaniel's neck, a second cape. "Oh, my gosh, do you see who he looks like?"
Caleb has no idea, but he plays along. "I can't believe it."
"Who? Who!" Nathaniel is fairly dancing with excitement.
"Well, IncrediBoy, of course," Nina answers. "Didn't you ever see his comic book?"
"No ..."
"Oh, he's the most super superhero. He's got these two capes, see, which allow him to fly farther and faster."
"Cool!"
"And he can pull people's thoughts right out of their heads, before they even speak them. In fact, you look so much like him, I bet you've got that superpower already. Go ahead." Nina squinches her eyes shut. "Guess what I'm thinking."
Nathaniel frowns, concentrating. "Um . . . that I'm as good at this as IncrediBoy?"
She slaps her forehead. "Oh my gosh! Nathaniel, how'd you do that!" "I think I got his X-ray vision, too," Nathaniel crows. "I can see through houses and know what candy people are giving out!" He dashes forward, heading for the stairs. "Hurry up, okay?"
With the buffer of their son gone, Caleb and Nina smile uncomfortably at each other again. "What are you going to do when he can't see through doors?" Caleb asks.
"Tell him it's a glitch in his optical sensor that needs to be checked out." Nina walks out of the room, but Caleb stays upstairs a moment longer. From the window, he watches his ragtag son leap off the porch in a single bound-grace born of confidence. Even from up here, Caleb can see Nathaniel's smile, can hear the sharp start of his laugh. And he wonders if maybe Nina is right; if a superhero is nothing but an ordinary person who believes that she cannot fail.
She is holding the gun that's a blow-dryer up to her head, when I ask. "What's the next thing after love?"
"What?"
The stuff I need to say is all tangled. "You love Mason, right?"
The dog hears his name and smiles. "Well, sure," she says.
"And you love Daddy more than that?"
She looks down at me. "Yes."
"And you love me even higher?"
