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I put my hands over his.

Mine weren’t grandfather’s. But I set them where he used to set his, one across Jake’s knuckles, one steadying his wrist. I guided his hand and the mark in it into the flame, and held it there.

“Watch the color,” I said. “Not the clock.”

We turned it together. The steel became dull, then took a shine along the edges of the letters.

“There. Now.”

He laid her into the inside of the lid, visible when it opened, private otherwise, and my hands stayed on his while he pressed. Firm. Steady. No rocking. The weight of generations rode that small motion, and it went through his hands and mine.

We lifted together.

The Celtic knot sat in the maple, sharp the entire way around. “MS” woven into the design. Mary Sullivan’s blessing on her grandson’s work.

“There,” I said softly. “Now it’s complete.”

Jake set the stamp aside. Then he pulled me close and kissed me gently.

“Thank you,” he murmured against my lips. “For teaching me I was worthy of this.”

“You were always worthy. You just needed to believe it.”

And there, propped against the built-ins where I’d see it every time I looked up, was the practice piece we’d burned with our joined marks last night. Jake’s grandmother’s knot flowed into my grandfather’s grain, a first draft of the panel we’d set into the workshop door in the new year.

“How does it feel?” Jake asked, moving to stand beside me. “Nothing due until January?”

“Strange,” I admitted. “Good strange, but strange. I keep checking for anything that needs finishing.”

My hands weren’t sure what to do with a free evening. Had they ever?

Jake followed my eyes to the bench and took Nana Mary’s stamp and returned it to where it belonged.

“What would he have said?” he asked. “Tonight. If he’d been standing here.”

“Deda would have picked up your box first,” I said. “Before he said one word to either of us. He’d turn it over and go straight to the joinery. Then he’d say something rude about the hinges, and that would mean he liked it.”

Jake was silent. He’d gone still.

“What?”

“Say that again.”

“Say what?”

“What you called him.”

“Deda.” I listened to myself say it and heard nothing extraordinary. “It’s what he was. It’s what I’ve called him for as long as I can remember.”

“Nico.” Jake set his hand flat on the bench, next to the two marks. “Your accent comes out.”

“It doesn’t.”

“It does. It came out on that word. It says how much he means to you.” There was no joke in it. He was telling me something he’d been keeping. “It came out in the first five minutes I was in your shop, when you were telling me about him.”

I opened and shut my mouth a few times while I considered what he’d said. “How much do I do that?” I finally asked.

“I admit that I’ve been listening for it. And it’s not random. It doesn’t come out when you’re angry. It doesn’t come out when you’re scared.”