“It’s my house,” he says.

I’m the one who remembers to leave the faucets dripping so the pipes won’t freeze. I’m the one who heard wood-borers eating away the inside of the support beams in the basement. And the one who gave a damn, who realized there could be serious damage, when a water stain suddenly appeared on the upstairs ceiling. But it’s his house.

I’ve been awake for ten minutes. He’s been awake for hours, most likely. It’s 9:30 in the morning. He’s in the dining room, in his pajamas and robe, sitting at the table in front of a spill of papers and frowning through his reading glasses at a recipe book. He has a cigarette going and a cup of coffee in his hand. Without looking up, he says, “Yo,” drawing the sound out. “Home-boy. How come you’re awake before noon?”

He does two things that really get to me. He does a lot of things, but two of them are when he exaggerates, and when he talks to me like I’m a teenager. I don’t think I’ve slept till noon once the entire time I’ve lived in his house, and I’ve been living here almost nonstop since I was eighteen. I’m not a “homeboy” or a “bro” or—when he reaches way back—a “cat.” I’m thirty-seven years old. I’m finding gray hair on my chest.

“I don’t have to work today,” I tell him.

“No? What’s Manny, going light on you?”

“Yeah, Dad, Manny’s going light on me. He’s paying me for doing nothing.” This isn’t far from the truth.

“Manny,” he says, and breathes out through his nose. Then he sucks in air through his mouth so quickly, it’s like exhaling was a bad idea, and this is loud too. I can hear every breath. I can practically hear his lungs, that plastic-shopping-bag sound, and I don’t want to picture what they look like. “You’ve seriously got the day off?” he asks, sounding irritated.

“Seriously,” I tell him.

He says, “A Thursday,” and breathes heavily. He’s holding a few recipe cards like a poker hand. “Thursdays I work, you know. Thursday is a business day for me. Have we got any raisins?”

“Yes.”

“I think we’re out of them,” he says.

But I’m the one who does the shopping, which has only become more of a chore ever since an episode of Emeril Live inspired him to start baking last year, so I say, “We’ve got a fucking jumbo bag of raisins in the pantry.”

“All right, all right. I’m thinking of making this raisin wheat loaf. Maybe. But Thursday’s a business day for me, you know. I’ve got an appointment this afternoon. Here.” The pinky knuckle of the hand holding the cards taps the table. “I’ve got someone coming by.”