Page 124 of Full Contact

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I took my car and Josh sat behind me, speaking into the rearview mirror.

“Mark understood the elevator faster than Dad did,” he said. “Do you remember the drawer of enormous bolts at the store?”

“It’s at the back by the chains.”

“I want to start there.”

“Will any of those fit the bathroom fan?”

“Uncle Clare, you know I made that up.”

As we entered the store, I heard the buzz of keys being cut at the counter. The huge bolts lived in the bottom drawer of a wall of small metal drawers at the back. Josh hauled it open with both hands and lifted out one as long as his forearm.

“What’s this one for?”

“Something that has to stay put in the wind like a dock or a barn door.”

He put it back and took out the next one. We worked our way up and down the wall. Josh swung every hinge to hear which ones squeaked. He tested spring clips until one snapped shut on his finger, and then he tested the next size more carefully.

He had lots of questions and every question led to another one. At the fastener counter, Josh stood on the bottom rail.

The man behind the counter asked what we were working on, and Josh told him about the elevator: the yardsticks, the shoebox lid, and the cars that fell off the side. The man listened carefully and set out four screw eyes and a small paper envelope of washers.

“For your corners,” he said. “Run the cord through the eye. It won’t slip off the edge like a knot will.”

Josh chose the screw eyes, then three screws of different sizes for his dad.

He wanted lunch at the sandwich shop by the grocery store, the one with the steamed-up front window and a cooler of root beer by the register. He took the same booth as last summer, on the side where you could see the parking lot.

Over a grilled cheese, he told me about Owen. He sat next to Josh in science class and said that sharks are older than trees. Josh had said that was impossible. Mrs. Alvarez looked it up, and Owen was right.

“That’s not the problem,” Josh said. He put his sandwich down. “The problem is he said it like he’d always known. He couldn’t have known it in kindergarten.”

I checked my phone. There was nothing from Mark.

“Keep going,” I said. “What did Owen say after that?”

“He said, ‘Told you.’”

“Did he say it nicely?”

Josh thought for a moment. “No.”

We’d left the house at nine forty. After lunch it was twelve fifteen.

Josh pointed down the row of shops. “Can we go to the hobby shop? They have cord.”

I started to say we needed to get back, but instead I said, “Yes,” and I took out my phone to text Mark.

Trier: Josh wants to stop at the hobby shop for cord. Back after that.

The answer came before we reached the hobby shop door. It was a photograph of the slot-hockey game on Russ’s kitchen table. The scoreboard read five to three.

Mark: You understated your brother’s competitive tendencies.

I crouched and showed Josh.