Page 181 of Full Contact

In mid-July, a week after the move, Mark came home from climbing while I was reading about the Edmund Fitzgerald with Peaches on my legs. His bag sat by the entry table, chalk whitening one strap. I’d had the afternoon to myself and finished most of the book.

Mark stopped beside the ottoman. “Can we move this? I keep catching my shin.”

I lifted Peaches off my legs and set her beside me. When I stood, she moved into the spot I’d warmed.

We slid Mark’s chair toward the window. That crowded the bookshelf. We moved it again, shifted my armchair, and finally cleared a route wide enough for Mark to carry coffee without turning sideways.

He sat with his book and adjusted the lamp.

“There,” he said.

From the couch, I could see his face and the courtyard behind him. Peaches could still reach the coffee table on her way to the floor. My armchair stood in a corner I’d never considered for it.

“It looks good,” I said.

“Walk past the ottoman.”

I did, and I didn’t bump anything.

The painting was next. We unwrapped it from the moving blankets Mark had kept since Milwaukee. He held it against the wall while I stood back.

“Up two inches. No, down one.”

“You said two.”

“I was wrong about one of them.”

Once I had it hung, afternoon light caught the ridges of blue paint and the rusty orange through the middle. I stood beside Mark and looked at it. I’d liked it at his place, but I liked seeing it from my couch even more.

Mark checked it with the level on his phone.

“Straight,” he said.

“Leave it alone.”

He put the phone away.

Anna had approved the desk after making sure its drawers opened without hitting the bed. She would keep her clothes in the dresser and her bag in the closet. She’d tried the chair, pronounced it comfortable, and asked whether we were keeping the spare phone charger.

I’d told her we were.

With the tools put away, I took Peaches’s medical folder out of its cabinet. Mark had settled into his chair. I sat on its arm and handed him the sheet I’d prepared.

“I haven’t replaced the old one yet.”

He put on his reading glasses.

Dr. Feld’s number came first, then the emergency hospital. Below those were the people to call if I couldn’t be reached. Mark’s name was above Varga’s and Rafe’s.

“I’d like you to be the first call,” I said. “If I’m on the ice, or on a plane. Are you willing?”

He read the page. He’d learned the ear gel from Dr. Feld’s tech in June. He knew the carrier, the food, and the little signs that meant Peaches wasn’t herself. When I’d been eight hundred miles away, he’d already been the person I wanted beside her.

Mark lowered the sheet.

“Yes, Clarence,” he said quietly. “I’m willing.”

I looked at him. His fingers rested on the page beside his name. I rested my hand over them.