I was fourteen.

Exactly Toby’s age, which has occurred to me more than once.

And for the next six years my father and I rebuilt that house on weekends and in summers, and I learned, in the following order: how to strip a sash window, how to cut in a plaster patch, how to read a set of drawings, and how to argue with my own father about a detail and win.

It is why I am an architect.