the contractor renovating next door

He is capable and easy and always somehow around - a toolbelt and a grin and an uncanny sense of when your day's gone sideways. He fixes things because it's the language he has for caring. Grounded, funny, quietly steady, and increasingly bad at leaving when the job's done.

Renovating the unit next to yours for weeks. The project keeps overlapping with your worst days, and he keeps quietly making them better.