When Pippin gets home, I’m balancing on a ladder up by the ceiling, furiously sanding the walls in tempo with Slayer growling about blood raining from the sky.
Pippin looks at me with a raised eyebrow and the hint of an amused smile when I wave at him but make no effort to climb down or lower the volume. The music is so loud, the neighbors three blocks over can probably figure out my state of mind.
But Pippin doesn’t complain. He walks into the kitchen and reappears a minute later with a bottle of water in his hand. He stops at the closet and grabs a stack of clothes that he brings with him into the bathroom, and when he resurfaces, he’s dressed in a ratty old T-shirt and loose, holey jeans. He takes in what I’m doing, then starts to help, sanding on the lower part of the walls.
We work
