That’s all.

That’s everything.”

“I give you my absolute word,” I said.

And Rosalie looked at our son for a moment, and then she gave me the sentence I have carried every day since, the wisdom of a dead carpenter passed down through his granddaughter to a man who badly needed to hear it.

“My grandfather used to say that a dependable man isn’t the one who builds the grandest structure in town.

He’s the one who stays standing when the house starts shaking.” I had spent twenty years building the grandest structures in town.