The house we’re working on in Cambridge has a Royal Tenenbaums...

The house we’re working on in Cambridge has a Royal Tenenbaums feel to it. Grand in a
certain nonchalant way, with art and rugs that suggest travel and a definitive
aesthetic, charming and well-framed
photographs of grandchildren, weddings, days on the beach when the kids were
small and curly-haired and wore striped towels around their shoulders. It is a
large house in a neighborhood with other large houses. You could have a good
game of three-v-three soccer in the backyard.

We wind our way up a creaking back stair to the third floor
to re-do a bathroom. The bedrooms up there, with tired floral wallpaper and
slanted ceilings, feel like rooms that adult children would return to during
some sort of nervous collapse. Lodged in time, nest-like, the two rooms up
there are tucked above and feel far removed from the human scene of the public
part of the house below. These are rooms not for children, not bright lit and
airy, looking out over the lawn, giving the feel of fresh potential upon every arrival of the morning sun. Nor are they atticky in that secret, ghosty way that is also right for kids.
These are rooms to pull the shades, stare at the seams of the wallpaper, and try
to unburden yourself of frights and pain, rooms to reassemble yourself after time has detached
you from a reality that’s understandable. These are rooms to disappear for a
little while. And, when we’re done, there’ll be a nice place also to take a
bath.