Chocolate smudged his cheek. His lips were raspberry blue. He chewed and swallowed. “Why do you think she knows?”

“Because your mom knows everything.”

“Why don’t you visit anymore?”

Evan resisted the urge to scratch at the remnants of the scabs on his neck. “Like we talked about, your mom and I thought it’d be better if—”

“I still think it’s dumb.”

“I understand that. Look, I just wanted to—”

Hopped up on candy bars, Peter leapt to his feet, ran to his desk, and began frenetically coloring in a Star Wars drawing. “Did you know butterflies taste with their feet?”

“I did not.”

“What do you want to wear in your coffin?”

“A wetsuit.”

“Do frogs have penises?”

“Not the ones I’ve met. Listen—Peter? Look at me. I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

He looked genuinely puzzled. “For what?”

“For how I was in the lobby. You’re right. I acted mean.”

“Oh. I forgot about that already. That was like years ago.” He set down his crayon, now worn to a nub, and looked at Evan. “Friends don’t make a big deal over stuff like that,” he said.

Evan had to clear his throat before he could respond. “Okay,” he said.

“I hope you can come back sometime.”

“Me, too.”

Peter turned back to his coloring book, and Evan slipped out into the hall.

He was feeling better every day. Just this morning he’d teased the sutures out of his shoulder with stitch scissors and needle-nose tweezers. He’d regained decent mobility with his right arm, though he had to be cautious about how far and how fast he pushed it. Oddly, his calf was bothering him more today, the nerve line like a twisting strand of barbed wire.

He stopped in the living room to take in the place. Drying laundry covered the couch. Jazz played softly down the hall somewhere, early Miles Davis. The air smelled of vanilla candles and hot chocolate and dish detergent. The kitchen trash can overflowed.

A real home in all its messy glory.

The Post-it stuck to the wall by the kitchen pass-through was more faded than when he’d seen it last. Written in Mia’s scrawl: “Treat yourself as if you were someone who you are responsible for helping.” She posted these life lessons, lifted from a favorite book, around the condo for Peter to read.

This one in particular had always given Evan pause. When he’d been trapped in that chalet, he’d been his own client for the first time, the one in need of rescuing. He wondered if he deserved the same happiness that he wished for the people he helped.

Mia surprised him. “How’d you do with the Duke of Sugarbuzz?”

“He was … inquisitive.”

“Did he ask you if frogs have penises?”

“He did.”

Mia toweled her hair some more. “Do frogs have penises?”

“I don’t believe they do.”