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“You remember what I told you about this,” I said. “That a piece has to earn it.”

“I do.” He didn’t move, understanding what he was about to watch.

The dining table stood a few feet away, finished a few hours ago. We could use it carefully tomorrow before it got the rest of its varnishing. The cherry had come up deep and even under the one coat I’d given it so far. The bookmatched halves met at the center seam, the grain running out from it in matched arcs.

I lit the torch and heated the stamp the way grandfather taught me. Patient. No hurry. I tested it on a cutoff first, and the burn came up clean, every line sharp.

For a moment, his hands were over mine again. Dry and rough and warm, the way they’d been when he first taught me to hold a chisel. Steady, because mine weren’t.

Then I pressed the mark into the underside of the table, near one leg. Someday a curious hand would find it.

When I lifted the stamp away, the Cyrillic letters and the woodgrain pattern sat burned into the cherry. A thin curl of smoke rose off the wood. Sweet and sharp. My grandfather’s blessing had crossed an ocean and a lifetime. Now it lived in a table that would be with Jake—with us—for generations.

Us.

The word caught a little, in the best way.

Would he have liked Jake? He would have loved him. Loved all of this.

When I straightened, Jake was watching me.

“You told me you never marked a commission.”

“I told you we’d see if your table earned it.” I carried the stamp to my workbench and set it in its place. “It stopped being a commission a while ago.”

Jake stared at his new dining table for a long moment and didn’t say anything.

“And it’s not the only mark that needs making today,” I said.

I picked up the one beside it.

Jake’s breath caught. The Celtic knot stood sharp on the face with MS woven through the lines. The handle was darkened where his grandmother’s grip had worn it smooth.

“I don’t know⁠—”

“You’re ready.” I tried to strike a balance between being firm and being gentle, since this was a significant move for him. “Look at this piece. See the precision of your joinery, the care in every detail. Your grandmother would be proud to have her mark on this.”

Jake stared at the stamp as if it might say something to him. Then he looked around.

At the dining table, ready for tomorrow’s Christmas dinner with his parents. At the single chair beside it, the first of eight and the only one I’d had time to complete. The rest sat in pieces. Tomorrow we’d round out the table with a mismatched set of chairs that Jake swore his parents wouldn’t mind.

His gaze drifted to the rest of the lumber in the shop, that waited to become a bed frame and bookshelves.

Then his eyes went to the stamp in my hand. And to me.

“I never could’ve imagined I’d use this,” he said quietly.

“But you can now. You can see it, feel it.” I placed the stamp in his palm and closed his fingers around it. “Your grandmother’s legacy lives through your hands. It’s time to claim it.”

Jake nodded slowly. He carried her to his bench and opened the box flat. Then he stopped, the stamp in one hand and the torch in the other, and didn’t move.

“How hot?” he said.

“That’s the whole job.” I came around behind him. “Too cool and it comes up faint. Too hot and it scorches, and the lines blur. And you get one press. There’s no sanding a mistake out of a lid that thin.”

“Nico—”

“I know.”