"Did you need something else?"

My father was already headed to the other side of the basement and up the stairs. I held in my hand four screws and anchors, that which we came down for. He thought he was done, and now he turned around to face me again, puzzled.

"Your workroom," I said, pointing as I looked. Even after the underground corner of my parent's house had been organized it was still a farrago of tools and projects — half of it useful, all of it memorable. At least four decades could be seen among the rows and piles.

There are, for the diligent and well-intentioned, measures of regret for work left openly undone. Yet in those exposed records are steps, decisions, moments — extant after so many years.