Building Baby Brother (continued)

My answer seemed to satisfy Josh. He took a step back from the workbench.

“Can it sit up?”

“Sure!” I replied, grinning again. “But we’ll need to help him up.”

I moved closer to the workbench and slid my hand under its left shoulder.

“Here,” I said, gesturing Josh toward its other side. “Help me sit it up.”

With far more gentle caution than was required, he reached beneath it and helped me (as much as he was able to) shift it into an upright sitting position.

Its legs hung over the edge of the bench. I heard the faint sound of gears locking to hold it upright. There was an eerie similarity to a young boy perched on the edge of an examination table in a doctor’s office. Had I not known better, I might have expected it to attempt to leap down from the platform.

Josh walked back around to where I stood; its head turned to follow him. When he reached me, Josh stopped and once again studied his new playmate.

Without turning, he asked, “Can I take him up to my room?”

“Sure,” I told Josh, smiling. “I don’t see why not.”

Josh moved forward, paused, and then stood, waving his hands in front of him with awkward motions.

“I’ll carry him up,” I offered, chuckling very, very softly. “Why don’t you run up and make sure that your extra chair is empty?”

I doubted that it was. His small rocking chair tended to be the dumping ground for, well, just about anything that he was asked to remove from his bedroom floor. I tried not to think about where everything that it currently held might end up.

“I’ll help you,” his mother said, and followed him up the stairs.

She was left in the proverbial dust. Josh was up and out of sight before she climbed the third step. She paused, turned to look at me with a steady stare, and then continued up the stairs.

For a moment, I stared at where she had been. I released a soft sigh and then turned back toward the workbench.

I lifted my creation, carefully carrying it with one arm underneath his knees and the other supporting his shoulders, leaning against him my chest, just as I would any other child.

He was much lighter than I had remembered, likely weighing even less than Josh did.

His electronic components are not as heavy, collectively, as skin, bone, and muscle. For some reason, that made him seem all the more delicate and fragile.