I recently went in the house that I lived in my whole life until my brothers and I sold it at the predictable juncture a few years back. The only thing that saved me from having the lump in my chest rise into my throat (or worse, my eyes) was the marvelous restoration job the new owners had done. She was a painter and had painted murals everywhere, an improbable act on a stodgy 125-year-old house, but somehow, it worked.

I remember going to my mom's childhood home when I was probably about Q's age. We knocked on the door but nobody answered; she patted a tree longer than made sense to me at the time.