Page 121 of Full Contact

Then he had his phone out, trying to get a picture from the bridge.

By the time I turned onto Russ’s street, I was pointing at things. There was the house where Josh had lost a borrowed drone. A couple blocks further was the old corner grocery store that had so far survived the big box stores.

I pulled in beside Russ’s truck, two wheels on the grass, already picturing Mark at the table, laughing at something Kelsey said.

***

Kelsey opened the door before we were halfway up the walk. She had her knit hat on and hugged Mark as if she’d been doing it for years. “You’re bigger than the cat,” she said.

“I’ve been told I photograph small.”

“You do. I sent a complaint.”

Russ came out behind her in his slippers, and took Mark’s bag in one hand, shaking Mark’s hand with the other.

“Do you use the peeler?”

“I do,” Mark said. “I brought photographic evidence of peeled carrots.”

The house was chilly inside, sixty-four degrees, the way Russ kept it, and the smell of pot roast filled the air. Josh stood at the base of the stairs, already shifting his weight back and forth from one foot to the other.

“Mark needs to come upstairs.”

“Go,” Kelsey said. “Dinner’s not ready yet.”

I ducked under Josh’s doorframe. Mark didn’t have to.

His school Chromebook lay open on the bed, the screen showing a video about suspension bridges. On the shelf above the desk, beside the gap where my fish used to sit, stood a second frog. It was dark blue. The glaze had pooled almost black around the back feet, and one eye sat a little higher than the other.

Josh noticed me looking. “It came out of the kiln last week,” he said. “Early.”

He lifted it with both hands and flipped it. MARK was scratched into the bottom in capital letters. Under it, smaller, was JOSH.

“It’s exactly the right blue,” Mark said.

“You said dark.” Josh set it upright. “Did you bring your toothbrush? We have to make sure it fits.”

Mark went down to the basement guest room and came back a few minutes later with his toothbrush. Josh took it from him and fitted it into the frog’s mouth. It leaned. He took it out, nudged the frog a quarter inch along the desk, and tried again. It stood straight.

“There,” Josh said. “I made the mouth extra wide in case.”

Mark crouched until his eyes were level with the desk. “Which way should he face on my bathroom counter?”

Josh gave the question serious thought. “Toward the shower. He’s a frog. He likes to see the water.”

Mark stood, and I wrapped my arm around his waist.

“Now you have to see the elevator,” Josh said.

It stood beside a bookcase: two yardsticks taped to the side, a curtain-rod bracket screwed in at the top, and a string running over the bracket down to a shoebox lid. In theory, it carried toy cars from the floor to the second shelf.

Josh loaded three cars and pulled the string hand over hand. The lid rose past the bottom shelf. Halfway to the second, the cars rolled to one end, the lid tipped, and all three slid off onto the carpet.

“Can you show me again?” Mark asked. This time he watched the corners of the lid instead of the cars.

“When I was about your age,” he said, “I built a ski lift for my action figures. The chairs kept tipping, so I taped washers underneath. The weight kept them hanging straight.”

“Uncle Clare told me.” Josh knelt beside the lid. “But a chair just has to hang. This has to stop at the shelf. If it stops crooked, the cars can’t drive off.”