The “someone” turned out to be a company called Sonoran Desert Glass & Screen . The owner, a sun-leathered woman named Maggie, showed up at 3 p.m.—the hottest part of the day—in a long-sleeved shirt and a wide hat. She didn’t even flinch when she touched the aluminum door.

Leo smiled. He still had to return the putty knife to the hardware store. But that could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, the desert was outside the glass. And for the first time in three years, it was going to stay there.

Leo was a DIY kind of guy. He’d rebuilt a Mustang engine in this same garage. How hard could replacing a door be? He watched four YouTube videos, each one hosted by a cheerful guy in a flannel shirt standing in what was clearly a mild Ohio climate. “Just pop out the old glass, slide in the new panel,” they said.

“That’s it,” Elena said from the kitchen, not looking up from her iced tea. “Call someone.”

“You know what I love about Phoenix?” she said.

They did not mention that the aluminum frame, baked in 115-degree heat for fifteen years, had essentially welded itself to the concrete threshold. They did not mention that the cheap Phillips-head screws had turned into soft, rusty nubs. And they definitely did not mention that the moment you break the original seal, a dozen tiny Arizona bark scorpions might be living in the hollow channel of the frame.