Casey stood in the doorway while his other three sons talked over each other about the trailer. One wanted a bigger kitchen. Another wanted separate rooms. The third kept saying they should add a porch. Chester wasn't here yet, and Casey needed him to be. The youngest pulled out a blueprint he'd drawn on graph paper. It showed the trailer with three stories and lights shaped like the letter D running along the roof. Casey squinted at it. The thing looked more like a tour bus than a home. The middle boy jabbed his finger at the paper and said they should start with an outhouse for meetings. Serious business only. The oldest laughed and said that was the shed out back, and it was already falling apart. Casey felt his grin starting before he could stop it. They were working angles against each other, same as he'd taught them without meaning to. Each one had a pitch. Each one wanted to win. But none of them were asking what the trailer should become — they were deciding what they could get from it. He stepped outside and let the door bang shut behind him. Chester would show up or he wouldn't. But Casey knew now that fixing the trailer meant picking one son's dream over the others. That was the part he hadn't let himself think about until right this second.

Casey walked around to the back of the trailer where the noise was coming from. The shovel sounds were louder now. Two different rhythms, hitting dirt in different spots. He turned the corner and stopped. The youngest had dug a foundation in the mud twenty feet from the trailer. Wooden beams sat crooked on concrete blocks, already sinking. Rebar stuck out at angles like broken bones. The middle boy was a hundred yards off building something with brick and metal — tall stacks rising up with statues carved into the sides. Muscled Greek guys. Same ones from the sketch on the kitchen counter with Casey's pen mark across it. Casey opened his mouth to yell but nothing came out. Both boys looked up at the same time and waved. The youngest held up the torn sketch like proof. The middle one pointed at the brick towers and grinned. They'd both heard yes when Casey hadn't said a word. They'd both started before Chester even showed up. He walked to the youngest first and kicked one of the concrete blocks. It shifted in the mud and the whole frame leaned sideways. "Stop," Casey said. Then he walked to the middle boy and looked up at the half-built factory with its stupid statues. "You too. Stop." Both boys stared at him like he'd just switched languages. Casey felt his chest tighten. He'd let them hear what they wanted instead of saying what he meant. Now he had to pick Chester's plan over theirs before they tore the whole property apart trying to win.

Casey didn't sleep. He sat on the trailer steps until the sun came up, then watched the youngest drag more concrete blocks across the yard. The boy hadn't stopped. Casey had told him to quit and the kid just nodded and kept working. By noon the foundation had a floor. By sunset there were walls. The kid had rigged up a lantern pole with oil lamps and Greek statue supports — same muscled figures from the middle boy's sketch, but smaller. Stolen probably. The light turned the mud orange and let him keep going after dark. Casey walked out twice to yell at him and both times the words died in his throat. The kid looked up with Casey's own eyes and went back to hammering. Around midnight Casey found the dock planks missing from the back of the property. They were nailed across the roof now. Swim trunks hung from a nail by the door like a flag. The youngest had built himself a whole structure — some kind of man cave retreat with a carved figure on the side. Too much work to tear down without making it mean something. Casey stood in the lantern light and felt his chest go tight. This wasn't about winning anymore. The kid had locked himself into a path Casey couldn't pull him off without breaking something. Casey walked to the door and knocked. The youngest opened it, sweating and covered in splinters. "You're gonna finish this," Casey said. Not a question. The boy nodded. Casey looked past him at the empty room with its stolen dock floor and makeshift walls. "Then you're gonna live in it. Not in the trailer." The kid's face went white. Casey turned and walked back across the mud. He'd wanted all four boys under one roof. Now he'd have three. The choice had been made for him, and he'd let it happen by not choosing fast enough.