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He said What's number 29? She said The way you mix muffin batter. Every night before they fell asleep he would ask her for another number. What's number 62? he would ask. The way you talk when you're on the phone to your father, she would say. What's number 85? The way you suck my big toe when we're fucking. Number 2? The smell behind your ears. He remembered them all and kept a written list hidden in his sock drawer. One night he asked her what number 85 was, just to hear her say it again. The colour of your eyes in sunlight, she said. He thought she had made a mistake, so the next night he asked her again. What's number 85? The way your hold your hands across my belly when we shower together, she said. One way to look at it, he thought, was that there was no definitive number of ways she loved him. She just said whatever came into her head when he asked. She wasn't keeping track like he was. The other way to look at it was that the list was in flux. Each item was jostling for position. Eyes in sunlight had been at 85 the night before, but had since advanced to 58. Hands across belly when showering had moved into 85th position, up thirteen places from 98 perhaps, or maybe down twenty from 65. He couldn't work out which was the more likely possibility. He tried revising the list, but it was only a matter of weeks before it became illegible, so much had been scribbled out and rewritten. One morning at breakfast he showed her the list and told her his theories about the list of ways she loved him. She laughed and offered a third explanation, and it was so much better than the two he'd come up with. Silly, she said. All the numbers are equal.
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