It is the sheathing

It is the sheathing. North side, about two thirds of it. So eight, not four, and if it rains before we start it, more. The roofer was almost apologetic, which made it worse somehow. I would rather be told a number flatly than be told it gently. Danny went up with a torch after he got home — actually went up, at seven in the evening, in work boots, while I stood on the lawn like somebody in a film being unhelpful — and came down and said he can do the tear-off himself in October when the Caldwell job pauses, and get two of the lads for a weekend, and that saves maybe two of it. Possibly two and a half. Then he said, we will find the rest. And I said okay. And I meant it, in the sense that I believe him and the sentence is true and he has never once not found it. And there is a thing in my chest that cannot hear him say I will handle it without going somewhere else entirely, and he has done nothing wrong in four years, and I stood on that lawn in the dusk being managed by a man who was being nothing but straight with me. He asked if I was all right and I said I was thinking about work. Which was a lie, and a well-constructed one, delivered without any particular effort, which is probably the part worth writing down. I did not have to think about it. It arrived fully formed and I used it.