The twinmobile, our van, was already there. I hurried down the narrow brick steps along one side of the house to knock on the low door, whose bright red surface was half hidden by an enormous green wreath festooned not only with a red bow but also a half-price sticker from the Caerphilly Market. I could hear carols playing inside—a very nice choral version of “Adeste Fidelis.” Josh opened the door on my first knock—clearly he’d been keeping watch.

“Mommy!” he exclaimed. “Come see playhouse!”

It did seem almost toylike compared with our current house. The ceilings were only seven feet tall so that Michael, at six four, had to duck when he went under an overhead light fixture. It was basically one not-very-large room with alcoves for the kitchen and bath and closet. In our time the kitchen had consisted of a microwave, a toaster oven, and a hotplate on top of a mini refrigerator, and we’d done dishes in the bathroom sink. Now it was fitted out with the smallest stove and kitchen sink I’d ever seen, and a slightly larger and newer mini fridge. Of course, the expanded kitchen took up a few more square feet of what was already a pretty minuscule living space, but it was definitely an improvement.

Charlie had replaced the hideous sofa bed I remembered with a nice new futon sofa. But the bathroom was still separated from the rest of the apartment by the same curtain made of a vintage sixties Indian-print cotton bedspread.