Page 125 of Full Contact

“He gave Mark your end,” he said. “Mark should have asked to switch.”

Inside the hobby shop, Josh found two cords: slick braided nylon and brown waxed cotton. Walking back to the car, he explained which corner we’d do first.

***

Mark and Russ were still at the kitchen table when we got back, but they were finished with the game. They each had a mug of coffee with a green photo album open between them.

Mark grinned at me over his mug. “Did you find the right screw?”

“We weren’t sure,” I said. “So we bought three.”

Josh lined the screws up in front of Russ and took the cord upstairs.

“Mark won two hockey games, and I won three,” Russ said.

“I tied it up with the last game, but Russ doesn’t agree,” Mark said.

“I’m disputing it.”

“He got up for coffee when the puck was in play,” Mark said.

I poured myself a mug of coffee and returned to the table. I put my hand on the back of Mark’s chair. “Do you want to get out of the house before dinner? There’s a place on Walnut that—“

“I’m happy where I am,” he said. “Unless you want to go.”

“No. I just wondered.”

I joined Kelsey in the kitchen. She handed me a bag of potatoes and a scrub brush.

“He’ll tell you if he wants something,” she said.

“I know that.”

“I know you know. I’m just saying it out loud.”

I scrubbed potatoes and didn’t answer. The water from the tap ran cold enough to make my knuckles ache.

“Uncle Clare!” Josh shouted from upstairs. “The cord came out!”

I dried my hands. On my way to the stairs, I stopped at the table.

“Do you want to come see?”

“Yes,” Mark said, and got up.

On the stairs, I noticed what I’d done. When Josh called, I usually went straight up. Since we’d arrived, I’d been checking where Mark was every time I left a room.

The slick nylon cord had slid out through a screw eye. Josh glared at it with his arms folded.

“It’s too slippery,” he said.

“Tie it below the eye,” Mark said. “Around the screw. The eye just guides it.”

Josh thought about that, then moved the screw eyes half an inch in from the corners and retied all four. Mark held the lid level while he worked. It still tipped. A toy truck rolled to the low side and stopped with one wheel hanging over the edge.

“It needs a wall,” Josh said. “A little one.”

He taped a strip of cereal box around three sides of the lid, leaving the side facing the shelf open.