Our father stuck Pink in the pot of dead geraniums outside the mudroom door to help direct future traffic. The women bearing casseroles hadn’t waited around for him, so we had his new man cave all to ourselves. He stood for a moment, jingling the change in his pocket, then settled into his cracked brown recliner. The rest of us got comfortable on the floor or took a seat along the outer edges of his round red bed.

Billy Jr. passed out what was left of the beer from the trailer fridge. Christine and I got a beer to share, which balanced out the fact that we’d each already polished off a glass of John’s wine.

“Slainté,” we all said as we held up our bottles, Christine’s and my hands overlapping.

Christine tried to grab the bottle from me, but I was too fast for her. Since I was older, I thought it only fair that I take the first sip before I handed it over. And so I did.

“The place looks great already, Dad,” I said.

He nodded. “It’s on its way, darlin’, it’s on its way. As long as you kiddos don’t forget about that 90-inch television set you promised me for Christmas.”

“90-inch?” Michael said. “No way. We told you 27.”

“Don’t kid a kidder,” our dad said. “And no matter what the ladies in the supermarket say about size doesn’t matter, the truth of the matter is we all like to be able see what we’re looking at.”

“Don’t anybody touch that one,” Billy Jr. said. “Just let it roll right by.”

“Back to my Christmas list,” our dad said. “Make sure you don’t forget that new recliner you promised me either. This one has a tendency to get stuck in the way-back position—in a pinch I’ve been known to resort to rolling over one of the arms to get out. And if you’re having a particularly good year in the moolah department, I do believe a minibar over in that corner would add to the overall deviance.”

We all looked around. “Don’t you think you should move the bed upstairs to the bedroom, Dad?” Christine said.

We were sitting in the former garage, which was a large open living area, with a kitchenette with an island at one end and a guest bath tucked in on the other end. An open staircase led up to the former secret room, where two dormers had been added to create a large master bedroom and bath.

Our dad leaned back in his recliner and crossed his legs. “It would be a sorry state of affairs if any visitors happened to miss the bed.” He clapped his hands twice. The LED lights circling the bed lit up. We watched them flash white to red to orange to blue to purple.

“Like, wow,” Johnny said. “How to trigger a flashback.”