Chapter 15: A Chair in the Sun
Three months later, the old bedroom smelled of wood dust, beeswax, and the coffee I kept forgetting to drink.
I had the chair turned on its side beneath the window. One leg was smooth beneath my palm; the other three still held stubborn patches of old finish. Sunlight stretched across the floorboards, stopping just short of the small drawer I’d set aside for parts.
I was working a strip of sandpaper into a carved groove when someone knocked.
Alexander stood on the porch with one hand behind his back. He waited while I wiped the dust from my fingers and opened the door.
“Good morning,” he said. “Am I still welcome to learn?”
“You’re welcome to learn,” I said. “Whether you’re good at it is another matter.”
His smile came cautiously, like a man testing a floorboard. Then he brought his hand forward. He held a brass drawer pull, its dulled surface polished bright, one screw tucked between his thumb and forefinger.
“I found this in the back of my desk drawer. Cleaned it up. Thought it might fit the little drawer you set aside.”
I took it from him. The brass was warm from his hand.
“You could have brought it next time.”
“I know.” He glanced at the workshop behind me. “I wanted to bring something that wasn’t a bill.”
I studied his face. He looked tired, though not in the old way, when he expected me to solve whatever had worn him down. These days, tiredness seemed to belong to him without being passed across the threshold.
“Come in, then,” I said. “But don’t mistake one drawer pull for a clean record.”
“I won’t.”
He stepped inside. No folder, no stack of papers, no request folded into a greeting. Just the little brass pull and a pair of hands that had spent the last few years doing more signing than fixing.
He looked around the room. My workbench stood where his drafting table had once been. A wooden plane sat beside a tin of screws, and the old trophies were gone—not thrown away in anger, but wrapped carefully and stored in the hall closet. The walls belonged to the light now.
“You made this room yours,” he said.
“I did.”
“I’m glad.”
I wasn’t sure whether he meant it. Then he set his coat over the chair by the door and came closer, careful not to brush the unfinished piece.
“Show me where it goes.”
I held the pull against the drawer front. The screw holes were close, but not quite right.
“Before you reach for the drill, look.”
He bent to examine it. I pointed out the old holes and the shallow scar left by the previous handle.
“The new pull won’t cover that,” he said.
“No. So we either fill the scar or place the pull somewhere else. What do you think?”
He considered the wood. “Filling it would be honest. Moving the handle would make it look like nothing happened.”
I looked at him. The brass pull rested in my palm, small and solid.
“Sometimes a scar can be filled,” I said. “Sometimes you just build around it.”
His gaze lifted to mine. “I know.”
There was no easy way to tell whether he meant the drawer or us. I didn’t ask. I gave him the measuring tape.
He started to mark the holes, then stopped with the pencil hovering over the wood.
“May I?”
“Yes. Measure twice.”
“I remember that part.”
“You remember the words. We’ll see about the measuring.”
He laughed under his breath. Then he measured once, checked the center, and measured again. His second mark landed where it should. When he drilled the pilot holes, he pressed too hard, and the bit caught.
“Ease up,” I said.
He backed off immediately. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to the drill. It doesn’t care.”
That made him laugh for real, a brief sound that tugged at an old memory without restoring it. I held the drawer steady while he worked. When the pull was fitted, it sat a little crooked.
He stared at it.
“I can fix it,” he said.
“Then fix it.”
He loosened the screw, adjusted the angle, and tried again. This time the handle sat straight. He ran his thumb over the brass, checking for a rough edge.
“I’d have been embarrassed to bring you that first try,” he said.
“You would have been embarrassed to bring me anything from that store.”
He went still. I hadn’t raised my voice, but the words landed hard enough. His thumb left the handle.
“I’m sorry about dinner,” he said. “Not just the words. I made you feel like the life you built was something I had to hide before I could be proud of my own.”
I looked down at the chair. The stripped wood showed every dent the varnish had hidden.
“I didn’t need you to be proud of the store,” I said. “I needed you not to be ashamed of me.”
“I know.” He swallowed. “I used your help like proof that I could always ask for more. Then I acted as if your advice was an insult. You gave me a place to start, and I treated you like you should stay behind the counter.”
For a moment, the sandpaper rasped in my hand. I let the sound fill the room before I answered.
“That’s closer to the truth than what you said last time.”
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Thinking is private. Changed behavior has to happen where I can see it.”
“I understand.”
I looked at him, waiting for the explanation that once would have come: the loan, the pressure, Richard, the firm, the bad week. It never came.
“I should have asked you what you thought because I wanted to hear you,” he said, “not because you might save me money.”
That hurt in a newer place than the dinner had. It also sounded like something he’d learned by listening rather than rehearsing.
“I can’t promise I’ll forget,” I said.
“I’m not asking you to.”
“And the bills you offered to repay?”
“I’ve made a list of what I can afford to pay back each month. I’ll bring it when you ask. I won’t set anything up without your say-so.”
“Good.”
He nodded. He didn’t try to turn that into a victory.
I brushed the dust from the chair’s carved edge. One patch of finish resisted the sandpaper. Alexander reached for the other end of the chair, then paused.
“Do you want help?”
“Hold it steady.”
He did. No fuss, no reaching for the tool, no telling me the best way to do it. I worked the paper into the groove until the old finish gave way beneath my fingers.
The doorbell rang. Valerie stood outside holding a covered dish and a paper bag.
“I brought tea,” she said when I opened the door. “And something sweet. I wasn’t sure how much sanding involves, but I assumed it requires sugar.”
“It does,” I said.
She stepped in, then stopped at the workshop entrance. “May I?”
“You may.”
Valerie set the dish on the little table. She didn’t say how much she’d missed this or how glad she was that we were all together. She simply poured tea into the cups I brought out and asked whether the chair was getting easier.
“Not yet,” I said. “It’s allowed to take time.”
Her eyes met mine. “That’s good.”
We sat for a while, listening to the quiet house and the tick of the cooling kettle. Alexander didn’t fill every pause. Valerie didn’t try to smooth them over. I watched my son hold his cup with both hands, careful of the heat, and felt affection move through me without taking anything else with it.
When the tea was gone, Alexander stood.
“Would you like me to come back next week?” he asked. “If you’re still teaching.”
“I might be.”
“I’d like that.”
“I’ll let you know.”
He accepted that answer. Valerie carried the empty cups to the sink, and the two of them left without asking me to promise anything more.
I returned to the workshop. The drawer pull shone softly against the wood. The chair still had rough places, and three legs still needed work.
May you like
I set the sandpaper down and turned the chair toward the window.
I could have finished it before supper. Instead, I left it unfinished, where the sunlight could find it tomorrow. Then I stood in the quiet room, breathing in the smell of wood and beeswax, content that what came next belonged to my choice.
