One•XXXIV•4

        Rennie’s father had shown him how to prime the model, once it was mostly completed, and had let the boy try his hand at varnishing and painting.
        ”All it takes,” John had told him, “is a concentrated gaze and a steady hand.”
        After varnishing the deck and mast, [...]

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One•XXXIV•3

     A few days into the project, Rennie’s sister had put on a record with the Beach Boys singing “Sloop John B.” Rennie and his father had gleefully sung along, altering the lyrics ad libitum (and so adding to the general, and atypical in their household, hilarity):
We come on the Sloop John A…
Each [...]

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Part One•Section XXXIV•Paragraph 1

    Rennie had been born in the early sixties, yet his father, even in the mid-seventies (even, Rennie conceded, into this new millennium), was—with his starched shirts, pressed suits and silk ties—the embodiment of the fifties. When Rennie was young, his father had been reserved in both manner and habit, getting up at five each morning, showering, [...]

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