That’s why I use wood now. It’s a lot harder to break.
Besides, furniture is practical. Usable. Something you can throw in your place and forget that someone made it at all. I never meant to get so technical with the builds, never meant to start with the carving. But sometimes, it’s like parts of me are just leaking out, leaving fingerprints all over a piece when I’m done, no matter how withheld I try to stay.
“It would mean a lot to me,” Warren tries, and I laugh again, shaking my head.
“I bet it would.” I walk over to the door, already feeling the pull back to the workshop. It might be hot, late July, but in the next hour or so, it will start to cool down again. That’s the nice thing about being in the mountains — heat never seems to stick around for long.
That’s a problem in the winter, but not so much now. Besides, the hard winters are behind me now that I know what to do — how to prepare, and how to use a wood stove without nearly burning my whole cabin to the ground.
“Can I at least see what you’re working on?” Warren asks, because he knows I’ll say yes.
Even after all this time, and all these lessons learned, I still can’t resist the urge to show someone else what I’ve made. Maybe some residual desire to get a gold star from my parents, thatgood job, son,which will never really come.
I bury those thoughts away and nod, turning out of the cabin without another word and leading Warren back into the workshop.
Today, I’m working with a bright white aspen wood from a tree I found felled in the forest. It took me weeks to finish processing the entire thing, but from the moment I saw it, I knew I wanted to make something smooth, continuous.
“It’s beautiful,” Warren says when I pull out the pieces and show them all to him. It’s a variation on what he always says — he loves whatever I’m working on — but I feel the need to tell him more about it, anyway.
“No screws or metal of any kind,” I say, pulling out the custom dowels I’ve made, slightly oblong. “Only glue. I thought metal would compromise the integrity of the piece. Wanted the wood to stand on its own, like a tree does.”
I walk him through what the rest of the process is going to look like, how I plan to hand-cut the pieces to make sure they’re perfect. Planing and shaping to pull out the best grain from the wood. The special glue I’m using and how it will create a lithe, but strong, frame.
And, finally, shallow, intricate carvings along the arms and legs that feel right to me, with how I found the tree in the woods. How I labored to bring it back to the wood shop. The way this tree has gained a second life through my hands and ideas.
When I’m done, the look on Warren’s face is near wonder. I take a step back, remembering seeing it on others’ faces, back before I learned my lesson about putting my creative work out there.
“Listen,” Warren says, putting his hands in the air and shaking his head, “I’m not going to force you to do it, man. And I won’t keep needling you about it. But I meant what I said about it. I think you should be sharing this with people. I think there are a lot of people who would want to hear what I just heard.”
I get Warren out the door and get back to working on my carvings. At least he won’t be needling me about it anymore.
Because the worst part isn’t that it’s annoying.
The worst part is that I’m starting to believe him.
CHAPTER 3
LACEY
Ididn’t read Jasper’s letter in the lawyer’s office.
Instead, I waited until George was done telling me what he had to about taxes and forms and other legal stuff, then drove home in a daze, walked into my condo, poured myself a cup of red wine, and slid into the bathtub, drying my hands on a towel before opening the letter and reading it.
Then, when I was done, I cried until the water was cold.
Fucking stupid Jasper. Of course he would keep his illness to himself. Of course he would plan some elaborate scheme to get me out to the cabin when I’d always said no before, using his death as the perfect leverage.
I’m San Francisco born and raised, just like him, and he can’t understand why I’d have no interest in driving or flying toMontanaof all places, just to spend a week there without cell service. I couldn’t evengameat his cabin; the latency would have me lagging into the next dimension, surely.
But now, here I am. In my car. Driving to fucking Montana.
Taking the first PTO of my entire career at Gaia, a request so unexpected that the HR representative had come directly to my office to ask if it was a mistake. I’d fought with them in the past about takingmandatorytime off. And I’d fought with them about taking more than a day after Jasper died. They were foaming at the mouth to make me improve mywork-life balance, so of course they were confused when the request came from my side.
At first, when I left San Francisco this morning at the crack of dawn, I’d cursed the decision to drive instead of flying. I’ve never loved driving — hazard of living in a city with terrible traffic, I guess — but I also knew I’d need my car in Montana. Jasper’s letter had made it clear that his cabin wasn’t in the kind of place that a person could order an Uber in a pinch.
So I stopped and got a flat white at my favorite coffee shop, then squeezed the steering wheel too hard all the way out of the city. It wasn’t until I hit the first long, flat expanse of road through Northern California that I turned up the radio, eased up on the steering wheel, and started to sing along with the pop songs I recognized.
Now, just having crossed the border into Oregon, I think that the drive is kind of nice. The views aren’t bad either. It’s a gorgeous sunny day, the sky a bright, deep blue, and being on the highway is giving me a sense of adventure.
