“Like I’m in a place someone else built that’s also mine now,” I said. “Like it holds two things at once.”

“Is that okay?”

“It’s better than okay. It’s what a home actually is.”

Some things took longer. The neighborhood had unfamiliar night sounds. The furnace made a hum that kept convincing me something was broken. And the hardest room stayed the workshop — twice I went down, stood in front of the pegboard full of carefully outlined tools, and quietly went back up, because I wasn’t ready.

Finally, in June, I went down and stayed. I didn’t rearrange anything. I just cleaned the workbench, oiled the wooden handles, and replaced the bulb that had been flickering above it for months.

When I finished, I sat in Dad’s old camp chair, and only then did I understand why he kept it there. It was where he liked to think. So I sat and thought too — about Scott saying he was glad I’d explained what the house meant; about Amber asking if she could always come back; about enough written beside the chili powder; about the overdue book I’d renewed again because I still wasn’t ready to let it go.