John crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s ridiculous. You have four other siblings who could have taken him in. We’re in the middle of a major renovation, we’ve got a house full of animals, Polly’s staying here. And we’ve got your father, which is no small thing, even if he’s theoretically moved into a separate space. And, might I remind you, I’m trying to work remote through all this.”

“Relax,” I said. “Maybe Johnny will only be here for the weekend. He and Kim probably just had a stupid little fight. I’m sure he’ll tell us the whole story tomorrow after he gets a good night’s sleep.”

John didn’t say anything. A vision of Johnny’s massive backpack flashed before my eyes. I tried to imagine how many changes of clothes it could hold.

“Okay,” I said. “Worst case scenario, my brother stays for a little while. So let’s try to figure out how we could make the sleeping arrangements work.”

My father’s new space took over the entire garage, as well as the room above it, which we called the secret room. The secret room was the only place worth sneaking a boy into when I was growing up. You accessed it by going through the little square postage stamp of a mudroom, unlatching a tongue-and-groove wooden door, and climbing up a rickety old staircase.

Every surface of the room had been covered in the same century-old knotty pine planks, darkened by time to a deep caramel. Walls turned into ceiling and met in a point overhead, providing a small central area where you could stand up straight. The only electricity had come from an old brown extension cord running through a hole cut in the ceiling of the garage.

I had a moment of silence for the secret room, all gone now except for the ghosts of our semi-wild teenage adventures. In its place was a new two-story self-contained abode that would host more adventures than I cared to think about for my father and his red vinyl round bed with the LED-lights.

Right now, my dad still had to enter and exit through the door in the mudroom we’d used, but once the new garage was built, he’d have a private entrance from there as well.

The renovations had been John’s vision. I had to admit I still had a hard time seeing the house I’d grown up in as anything other than the house I’d grown up in.

“I know you’ve told me a million times,” I said. “But just explain again how this next part of the makeover will work.”

John actually smiled. He loved to talk about reinventing our new old house.