Percentage change equals change in function divided by previous function value. Then at the very end, you multiply it by one hundred percent. I don’t feel one hundred percent, I don’t think I ever have. The formula is supposed to show growth, so why can’t I apply it to myself? Have I not met growth?

“You ready, hun?” Mary says.

Mary, my sweet, sweet wife. She’s seen it all, the plateau and all. I don’t think she really loves me. Maybe she doesn’t know it because she’s never felt love. In fact, neither have I, but this can’t be love. Love can’t be this mundane.

“Hun, get dressed,” she says. “Were gonna be late.”

I don’t answer. I can’t look at her. The wrinkles in her forehead, the dimples in her cheeks, the cheap lipstick on her lips—they all make me sick. To satisfy, I begin applying my favorite tie. The redness of it caters to my slim stature, allowing me to feel stout.

“HUN,” she says again, opening the front door. Rays of sunshine explode into the living room. I don’t mind the light as they calmly blind me.

Behind the steering wheel, everything clears in mind. She sits silently next to me, but raging in my thoughts. Kids play touch football in their yards as we drive by, she waves, I ignore. “Look at the kids playing, hun,” she says. “Wouldn’t it’ve been nice to have one?”

A semi-truck emerges over the horizon, maybe a half mile away.

“A boy,” she says. “I would’ve liked to have had a boy.”

A light blue beetle speeds by with the semi seconds behind, nearing.

“I guess it wasn’t in the Lord’s plan,” she says grabbing my right hand. I turn to her, she’s smiling at me with tears in her eyes. I gaze back into her as I violently pull the wheel to the left and into the other lane.

Our eyes met those last seconds, when the rest of our worlds stood still. She loved me then, I just didn’t know it. Didn’t want to know it. Is it possible that regret is growth?