“That is very kind of you.”

She looked back at their garage, where the metal door was half-open, revealing stacks of folded cardboard boxes and a plastic lawn mower.

“I wanted to apologize for the tension lately,” she said, her voice dropping another octave.

“Tyler gets very focused on his projects.

He has a lot of people pushing him on this one.”

“The pool project?” I asked.

“The contractors have a strict window,” she said, her fingers tightening around the edge of her shirt.