Randall bought it when our first grandchild was born because he said phones made everyone film vertically and civilization had suffered enough. He had recorded Christmas mornings, beach trips, Jonah repairing our porch steps badly, Elise asleep on the couch with a baby on her chest.
I unzipped the case.
The camera battery was dead.
Of course it was.
Jonah found the charger in the front pocket.
“There’s an outlet by the office,” he said.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“We watch it here.”
“Battery’s dead.”
“Then find me electricity.”
That was my son’s language.
He nodded.
Five minutes later, Wade had produced an orange extension cord from his truck. He ran it from an outlet at the end of the corridor while Elise cleared space on the folding table. Nobody commented on the absurdity of it: four people gathered in a storage unit, plugging a dead man into the wall.
