“I wanted to tell you that this is my favorite class.”

“Good Lord, what else are you taking?”

Trigo was just where I’d left him.

“Awwww,” Sam said. “He’s adorable. What’s his name?’

“Trigo.”

“Poor thing, only one leg. What happened to him?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Here, you can hold him.”

“To his other legs. What happened?”

“He has one leg.”

“When you got him, didn’t they tell you how he lost his legs?”

“I didn’t ask. I walked into the shelter, saw his face, and said I’ll take him. I have to admit the people at the shelter seemed surprised. I’m pretty certain they were going to kill him now that I think about it.”

Sam covered the dog’s ears.

“Don’t worry. Trigo and I have talked about this. I’m glad they didn’t kill him. I think he’s happy about it, too.”

“I’m sure.”

“Tea?”

“Okay.”

Sam stepped to the doorway and looked into the living room.

“What you expected?”

“I thought there would be more books.”

“Books are heavy.”

“Do you move a lot?”

“No.”

Sam came back and sat at the table. Trigo licked Sam’s face.

“What do you want to talk about?” I put on the water and took Trigo’s food from the cabinet. “You can just put Trigo on the table.”

“My parents,” Sam said. “They think I’m wasting my time studying math. My father’s a chemical engineer and my mother is a surgeon and they think I can’t do anything with a math degree.”

“Well, they’re right.” Sam looked surprised. I sat and fed Trigo his first bite. “Some people want to do big things in the world. Build bridges, save lives, that sort of thing. Your parents. Some people want to understand big ideas. Will it matter to anyone anywhere that you know the difference between the Knaster-Tarski fixed point theorem and the Tarski fixed point theorem? No, it won’t. But it will matter to you.”

“Are you happy doing what you do?”

“What is it you think I do?”

Sam was caught off guard by the question.

“I’ll tell you what I do, Sam. I do nothing. I try to do nothing. Turns out it’s harder than it looks. Not that I know what it looks like. You like puzzles, I know that. This is a great place for your brain to be. You can figure out some of this stuff and explain it to me. I always appreciate all the help I can get.”

The kettle called. “Can you pour the water? I’m feeding Trig.”

Sam stood and walked to the stove. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“If it weren’t for Gödel, where would we be?”

“I don’t know, where would we be?”

“I don’t know, either. Perhaps in service to a bald present king of France.”

“What?”

“You probably shouldn’t seek life advice from someone like me.”

“Are you happy?”

“What is happy? Define your terms. This happy you speak of, is it a state or a condition, if there is a distinction to be made there? Is it something I can take on, something that I can occupy, or is it something that occupies me? Is it something I find or something that I passively catch?”