Friends arrived. Colleagues. Terrence, my project manager, who came in the door already mid-argument with an architect named David about zoning regulations in Buncombe County, an argument that had apparently started in the car and that showed no signs of resolving.
Megan’s boyfriend, a quiet man named James who was an exceptional listener and who always brought good wine.
A contractor named Pete who had worked on three Holt Ridge projects and who arrived with his wife and two children who were twelve and eight and who immediately found the window seats in the living room and claimed them.
People I had worked with. People I had known for years. People who had watched Holt Ridge grow from a folding desk into something real.
They moved through the house the way I had imagined my parents moving through it, stopping at the fireplace, standing at the kitchen windows, running their hands along the reclaimed beams.
