Page 35 of Property of Whiskey

I hold up the cap. “Frog.”

“That doesn’t look like a frog.”

“Needs eyes.”

“With what?”

I grab two peppercorns from the cabinet.

Wren watches while I glue them onto the bottle cap. The result looks like something that crawled out of a crooked creek behind a meth lab.

She leans closer.

“It’s ugly.”

“Nature’s full of ugly shit.”

“Dad.”

“Stuff.”

She giggles.

I draw legs with the black marker and set the thing near the river.

“There.”

“It looks dead.”

“Then it’s part of the food chain.”

Wren considers that. “That’s science.”

We spend the next hour finishing the project. I don’t rush her when she decides everything needs more glitter. I don’t check my phone every time it buzzes. I turn it facedown instead and ignore the club for a while. I don’t correct her when she gives one of the deer spikes. When she decides the entire sky needs to be redone because the cotton-ball clouds are too round, I help peel them off. She cuts. I hold. She glues. I keep the glitter contained to one side of the table, which ought to qualify me for federal emergency management.

By the time we’re done, the forest stands upright, the river flows in the right direction, and the bottle-cap frog has been promoted to APEX PREDATOR because Wren thinks he looks mean.

She writes her name across the bottom.

WREN WELLER

Then she looks at me. “Do you like it?”

“Best ecosystem I’ve ever seen.”

She smiles.

I reach for a wet paper towel and wipe a streak of glitter from her cheek. “You eat?”

“Glamaw brought egg salad.”

“That means no.”

“It was crunchy.”

“Eggs shouldn’t crunch.”

“I know.”