“Let me know when you find that phone number,” I tell her, and head to my own office to crack open my ancient Rolodex—so old it’s almost new again, probably hipster heaven, who knows—and flip business cards alphabetized by vocation. Somewhere between Electrician and Exterminator, my father’s voice creeps into my head. It says, You’re paying other men to do a man’s job now?

I twitch and bypass Groundskeeper.

Irrigation. Mechanic. Painters. Plumber.

Too much heavy lifting? Too messy for you?

Roofer.

What kind of man can’t fix his own house?

Windows.

No son of mine.

“Forget it,” I shout to Elizabeth.

She steps out of her office and asks, “Forget what?”

“That phone number,” I say. “I don’t need it.”

“You found it?”

“No. I’m going to clean the gutters. I’ll fix the damn leak myself.”

She hardly reacts—probably because it’s high time I offered. I exit through the garage, acting put out, like being needed is a burden, when in a carbon-dense place inside of me, I’m thrilled to say, I’ll do it myself, for a change.

I move our cars out of the garage to clear space for the mess I’m about to make. Elizabeth stays in the house and doesn’t complain when ladders bang walls as I unhook them from ceiling mounts. She doesn’t check on me when I drop an open box of golf balls on the ground while searching for the PVC extension to my backpack leaf blower, which needs fuel, so I fill it and get a little high from the fumes. The attachment is nowhere to be found, though, and now I seem to remember loaning it to Gabriel next door before he moved. Thanks a lot, Gabe. Whatever. I’m young and agile and perfectly capable of leafblowing from a ladder.