The men from the supplier arrived around ten the following morning with the sanding tools. As they began explaining to him how to use them, Neil started to have second thoughts—not about redoing the floors, they needed it, but about doing it himself. Some things, he decided ruefully, were better left to younger men, and this was one of them. When he asked if they’d be able to stay to do the sanding, one of them glanced at the other with a grin.
“You knew I’d ask, didn’t you,” Neil said with a bit of a grin of his own.
“It’s about fifty-fifty who does and who doesn’t.” The man gave him the cost for the job, he agreed to the price, and they set to work after moving everything in the living room, dining room, and entryway up to the second floor. They looked at the trap door, which Neil had
