14.

The house painter spent his twenties in New York, then said goodbye to all that as Didion did.

He travelled, saw every continent except Antarctica, returned (too late) to nurse his mother.

He enjoys working outdoors, the different smells of paint as it settles, the challenge of constructing a scaffold by himself: the Egyptian feat of it.

The lighthouse was tricky. So high and rounded. As he worked the owner would look down from the glassy pinnacle, never smiling, never frowning, just interested.

Perhaps it was staring so long at its white surface, but these days he dreams of ice.