Chapter 7 Small Steps Forward
Saturday morning starts the way most of my Saturdays have started for the past few weeks.
Coffee on the patio. A slow survey of the garden.
A list of things I want to get done before the day is over.
The list used to include Kirk. Check in with Kirk.
See if Kirk wants to come over. Adjust my plans to fit Kirk's schedule.
Now the list is just mine and I decide what goes on it.
Today it says: yard sales. Hardware store. Garden.
I hit three yard sales before ten o'clock.
The first two are unremarkable. Baby clothes and old kitchen appliances and paperback novels arranged on folding tables in driveways.
I browse out of habit more than expectation.
The third sale is on a quiet street near the park.
A woman in her sixties is sitting in a lawn chair next to a table of dishes and glassware.
Behind her near the garage there's a collection of outdoor furniture.
Most of it is plastic or aluminum. But in the corner leaning against the garage wall is a garden bench.
I see it immediately and I walk straight to it.
It's an old garden bench made of oak with a slatted back and curved armrests.
The wood is weathered and gray and the left leg is split near the base.
One of the armrests is loose. The seat slats have gaps where the wood has warped and separated over the years.
But the joints are still solid and the overall structure is sound.
Someone built this bench a long time ago and they built it well. It just needs attention.
The woman running the yard sale wants fifteen dollars for it. I give her twenty because she tells me it belonged to her grandmother and she doesn't want to see it thrown away. I load it into the back of my car and drive home.
In my backyard I set the bench on the concrete patio and walk around it slowly.
I run my hands over the wood and test the joints.
The split leg is the biggest problem. I'll need to glue it and clamp it and probably reinforce it with a dowel.
The loose armrest just needs new screws.
The seat slats need to be removed and sanded and refinished individually before being reattached with proper spacing.
The whole thing needs to be stripped and sanded and sealed.
It's a lot of work. A few weekends at least. I don't care. I'm excited about it in a way I haven't been excited about anything in a while.
I change into old clothes and start with the stripping.
I use a chemical stripper to remove the old finish and a scraper to work through the softened layers.
The process is slow and smelly and satisfying.
Underneath the gray weathered exterior the oak is still beautiful.
Warm golden brown with tight grain patterns that tell you the tree was old when it was cut.
I work for three hours straight and manage to strip the back and both armrests.
My shoulders ache and my hands are sore and I feel genuinely accomplished for the first time in weeks.
After lunch I drive to the hardware store on Maple Avenue for supplies. Wood glue. Clamps. Sandpaper in three grits. A new can of polyurethane. Replacement screws. I'm standing in the sandpaper aisle comparing brands when I hear someone say my name.
"Brook?"
I turn around. Ross is standing at the end of the aisle with a shopping basket over his arm. He's wearing jeans and a faded t-shirt and his hair looks different than it does at work. Less neat. More relaxed.
"Ross. Hi."
"Sorry. I didn't mean to sneak up on you. I'm just picking up some supplies for the cedar chest project."
"That's the one with the warped lid?"
"The very same. My dad thinks we can steam it flat but I have my doubts."
"What are you going to do if steaming doesn't work?"
"Probably plane it down and rebuild the lid frame. More work but it'll be stronger in the long run."
I hold up my sandpaper. "I found a garden bench at a yard sale this morning. Oak. Split leg. Needs a full restoration."
"Oak? How old?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe fifty years based on the hardware. The joinery is solid though. Mortise and tenon."
Ross sets his basket down and gives me a look that I can only describe as professionally interested. "Mortise and tenon on a garden bench? That's quality work. Can I see a picture?"
I pull out my phone and show him the photos I took before starting the stripping process. He zooms in on the joints and the grain pattern and the split leg.
"That's a nice piece," he says. "The split is clean. You should be able to glue that and reinforce it with a hardwood dowel without any trouble."
"That was my plan."
"Do you have a drill press for the dowel holes?"
"No. I was going to use a handheld drill."
He shakes his head. "If you want the dowel to sit straight you really need a press. Or at the very least a good doweling jig." He pauses. "My dad has a drill press in his workshop. If you want I could drill the holes for you. Or you could come out to the shop and use it yourself."
"You don't have to do that."
"I know. But I have a personal policy about never letting someone ruin good oak with a crooked dowel."
I laugh. "Is that a common policy?"
"It should be."
I think about it for a moment. He's not pushing. He's just offering. The same way he offered coffee. Easy and genuine and completely without expectation.
"How about this," I say. "Why don't you come by my place and look at the bench first? If you think the leg needs the drill press then we'll figure it out. But I might be able to get away with the jig."
"That works. When?"
"Are you busy this afternoon?"
"Not after I steam a lid that probably won't cooperate."
"Come by around three? I'll text you my address."
"Sounds good."
We exchange phone numbers in the sandpaper aisle of the hardware store and I give him my address.
He goes back to his shopping and I finish mine and we check out separately.
In the parking lot he waves from his truck and I wave back and drive home feeling something I haven't felt in a long time.
Anticipation. The simple pleasant version of it.
Not the anxious kind I used to feel waiting for Kirk to show up or cancel or explain why he wasn't coming.
At home I continue working on the bench.
I strip the seat slats and remove them from the frame and sand each one individually.
I repair the loose armrest with new screws.
I clean up the work area and sweep the patio and then realize I'm tidying up because someone is coming over and I catch myself and laugh.
It's a backyard. It doesn't need to be presentable.
Ross arrives at three fifteen. He pulls up in a dark green pickup truck and comes around the side of the house to the backyard. He stops when he sees the bench spread across the patio in its various disassembled pieces.
"You've been busy," he says.
"I stripped the frame this morning and pulled the slats apart after lunch. The joinery is even better than I thought. Whoever built this knew what they were doing."
He crouches next to the split leg and examines it. He turns it over in his hands and runs his thumb along the grain.
"This is a clean split along the grain. Glue and a dowel will hold this permanently. Let me see the angle." He holds the two pieces together and tilts them. "You could probably get away with the jig. The hole doesn't need to be perfectly centered for this. It just needs to be straight."
"So no drill press?"
"Not for this one. But if you ever find a piece that needs precision doweling the offer stands."
We spend the rest of the afternoon working on the bench together.
Ross glues the split leg while I sand the remaining slats.
He shows me a trick for clamping irregular shapes using a ratchet strap instead of traditional clamps.
I show him the technique I use for removing water stains from bare wood using a combination of oxalic acid and fine steel wool.
We trade knowledge back and forth the way people do when they share a craft and respect each other's skill level.
He doesn't take over. That's the thing I notice most. He doesn't grab the tools from me or explain things I already know or position himself as the expert while I watch and learn.
He works beside me. Literally beside me.
On his knees on my patio sanding oak slats while I do the same thing two feet away.
We talk and work and occasionally one of us stands up to get a drink of water or check the drying time on the glue.
Around four o'clock I go inside and get us both glasses of water. When I come back out Ross is examining the frame closely and making notes on a scrap of paper.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Sketching the joint layout. Just for my own notes. I like to document interesting joinery when I find it. This person used wedged through-tenons on the armrest connections. That's unusual for a garden bench. Most people would use bolts or dowels."
"You take notes on furniture joints."
"I take notes on everything. Occupational hazard. My apartment is full of notebooks with sketches and dimensions and wood species identifications. My sister thinks I'm obsessive. My dad thinks I'm thorough."
"I think your dad is right."
He takes the water and drinks half of it in one long swallow. "Thank you. I forget to hydrate when I'm working. Another occupational hazard."
We sit on the patio steps for a few minutes taking a break.
The backyard is small but I've made it comfortable over the years.
The garden bed along the fence. The tomato plants.
A small herb garden near the back door. The patio itself with its wobbling chairs and cracked concrete. None of it is fancy. All of it is mine.
"I love this yard," Ross says. "It's exactly the right size. Big enough to do something with. Small enough to actually maintain."