Vern Dahl called on a Wednesday afternoon in February. And the first thing he said was, “Gordon, I hate to bother you down there.”

I was standing outside our rented park model in Mesa, Arizona, with a cup of coffee going lukewarm in my hand. It was eighty-one degrees. Somebody two lots over was playing a Charley Pride record on a little radio.
ern is seventy-five. He’s lived across the street from us in Iowa since 1981.

And Vern does not call Arizona to talk about the weather. Because the weather in Iowa in February is not news.

“You’re no bother, Vern,” I said. “Is the house all right? Did a pipe go?”

“The house is fine,” he said. “That’s not it.”

Then he went quiet. Quiet so long I pulled the phone away from my ear and checked whether the call had dropped.

“Gordon,” he said. “There’s a fella living in your basement.”I set my coffee down on the little railing by the step. I remember that, because a grackle landed right next to it, bold as you please, and I didn’t even shoo it.

“Brett’s girlfriend moved in around Christmas,” Vern went on. “The girl with the dark hair. Works over at the care center. That part I figured you knew about. But now her brother’s in there too. Since the first of the year.”

“In the house,” I said.

“In the basement. He told me so himself at the Casey’s. Nice enough young man. Polite. Said he pays Brett six hundred dollars a month for it, and it’s the best deal in the county.”

I didn’t say anything for a while.

Vern let me not say anything. That’s one of the reasons he’s been my neighbor for forty-five years.
I’m seventy now. My knees still get loud in January, and I still write things down on index cards.

But these days, when something goes wrong, I try to remember that the people I love are not the mistakes they’ve made.

Sometimes they need a rule.

Sometimes they need a second chance.

And sometimes, when the smoke has cleared and the damage is done, they just need their father to stand beside them and help build something new.