“We hand them a finished thing.

Invite them to dinner and give them an address.”

He grabbed his yellow wire puller off the floor and walked down the dark hallway toward the breaker panel in the basement.

I scooped the wet wallpaper scraps into a canvas sack, swept the pine floor with a stiff broom, and mixed a small tub of joint compound to skim over the bare lath.

By six o’clock, Nate had wired the main switch box in the kitchen, grounding every copper line to the iron water pipe that came in through the foundation wall.