Page 64 of Full Contact

“Dad.” Josh was already back at the bookcase with the marble. “Hold it on the funnel.”

Russ held it on the funnel. The marble went around twice and dropped into the cup, and Josh explained how he’d made the funnel out of a paper plate, and why the first three paper plates hadn’t worked. By the time he finished, Kelsey was calling them to get their shoes on. They were going to her mother’s for an early dinner.

Russ said he’d text about it another night. He looked at me over the phone for a second before he hung up, but he didn’t ask anything else.

Peaches stretched one front leg across my knee and spread her toes.

“He’ll ask Kelsey,” I told her. “Kelsey will start speculating.”

She tucked the paw back under.

I sent Mark a text.

Trier: Thursday. Do you want me to order, or is there something you’d rather eat?

He answered a few minutes later.

Mark: I’d like to cook, if your kitchen will have me. There’s a chicken dish Felix taught me. I can make it without supervision now.

Trier: How long has that been true?

Mark: Since my knives got sharpened. Tell me what pans you own.

I got up, which Peaches considered a betrayal, and walked to the kitchen to take a picture of my pans.

***

I called Mark while I was putting away groceries.

He’d sent me a list after I sent him pictures of the pans. I bought bone-in chicken thighs, two lemons, a bulb of garlic, and green olives, the kind with pits, because Mark said the pitted ones tasted like the jar.

I’d driven to the store with the list on my phone. At the deli counter, I’d asked for the olives by pointing, and the man serving me had offered one on a toothpick before filling the container. I bought extra.

“I’m putting your groceries away,” I said. “The chicken’s in the freezer until Wednesday.”

“Did you find everything?”

“I bought everything. I already had thyme. There’s a rosemary plant on the windowsill that Anna waters, if that’s useful.”

“It’s useful. Did you find the olives with pits?”

“I did. The man at the deli gave me a sample, and I bought extra.”

The deli container leaked a little brine onto my wrist as I set it on the shelf.

“Then we’ll have some to eat while we cook.” I heard paper rustling on his end. “I’m laying out tomorrow’s clothes. I’ll bring wine Thursday. You don’t need to do anything else.”

“I don’t have a lemon zester.”

“Then I’ll bring the one Felix gave me last Christmas.”

Behind me, a claw caught briefly in the wood of the little chair. Peaches climbed onto the counter and sat beside the treat jar, looking at it instead of at me.

“She’s here,” I said. “She’s attempting to renegotiate the household schedule.”

“Is she winning?”

“She had a treat at four. She’s arguing that four was a long time ago.”