The house on Alder Street is a 1948 two-family with vinyl siding the color of oatmeal and a shared front stoop and a maple in the yard that drops enough leaves every October to fill nine bags.

It took me until December to make our half livable.

I did most of it myself, badly, in the evenings, with my father coming over on Saturdays to redo the parts I had done badly.

Nina got the bedroom with the window over the driveway.

Sam got the small one, which he preferred, because he was six and had strong feelings about being able to touch both walls.

The tenants on the other side were a couple in their seventies named the Bhattacharyas, who had been in that unit for nine years and who had been terrified when they heard the landlord was moving in next door, and who within four months were feeding my children so consistently that I had to have a conversation about it.