Chapter 12 Looking Forward
Ross introduces me to his father on a Sunday afternoon in early September.
We drive out to Maxwell Hughes's property about twenty minutes north of Wildhorse.
The house is a modest ranch-style home set back from the road with a long gravel driveway and a barn behind it that Maxwell converted into a workshop decades ago.
The yard is clean and simple. A few shade trees.
A vegetable garden along the south side of the house.
A wooden bench near the front door that Ross tells me Maxwell built himself.
"He built most of the furniture in the house too," Ross says as we pull into the driveway. "The dining table. The bookshelves. My sister's crib when she was born. He's been making things with his hands his whole life."
"You're nervous," I say.
He turns off the engine and looks at me. "I'm not nervous."
"You've told me four facts about your father in the last two minutes. You're nervous."
He laughs. "Okay. Maybe a little. He's important to me. I want you to like him."
"I already like him. You've been talking about him for weeks."
We get out of the truck and walk to the front door.
Before we reach it the door opens and Maxwell Hughes steps onto the porch.
He's a tall man in his late sixties with broad shoulders and thick hands.
His hair is mostly gray and he wears glasses that sit low on his nose.
He's dressed in work clothes. Old jeans and a flannel shirt with sawdust on the sleeves.
He looks exactly the way I imagined he would based on everything Ross has told me about him.
"You must be Brook," he says. His voice is deep and warm. He extends his hand and I take it. His grip is firm but gentle. Careful the way Ross is careful. "Ross has told me a lot about you."
"All good things I hope."
"The best things. He says you can refinish furniture."
"I try."
"She's being modest," Ross says behind me. "She restored an oak garden bench from a yard sale that would make you weep, Dad."
Maxwell smiles. It's the same smile Ross has. Warm and unhurried. "Well then. Come in. I'll put some coffee on and then I'll show you the workshop."
The inside of the house is exactly what I expected.
Clean and comfortable and filled with handmade furniture.
The dining table in the kitchen is solid maple with a hand-carved edge that I notice immediately.
The bookshelves in the living room are walnut.
Every piece has the quiet confidence of something built by someone who knows exactly what they're doing and doesn't need to prove it.
Maxwell makes coffee in a drip machine on the kitchen counter. He pours three mugs without asking how we take ours. Black for Ross. Cream for himself. He looks at me.
"Ross says you take yours black."
"He's right."
"Good taste." He hands me the mug and leads us through the back door to the workshop.
The barn is larger than it looks from the road.
The interior has been completely converted.
One wall is covered with hand tools organized on pegboard.
Chisels. Planes. Saws. Clamps of every size arranged by type.
There are two heavy workbenches in the center of the space.
A bandsaw and a drill press and a table saw along the far wall.
The air smells like wood shavings and linseed oil and something else that I can't quite identify but that makes me feel immediately at home.
On one of the workbenches is the rocking horse Ross mentioned. It's about half finished. The body is carved from a single piece of pine and the rockers are shaped from oak. Maxwell has roughed out the basic form and is now working on the details. The mane. The ears. The saddle shape on the back.
"This is beautiful," I say. I run my hand along the body. The surface is smooth despite the rough stage. He's been sanding between cuts. That's the mark of someone who treats every step with equal care.
"It's for the neighbor's granddaughter," Maxwell says. "She's turning three in October. I promised her grandmother I'd have it done by then."
"You'll make it?"
"If Ross stops bringing me distractions." He winks at me and Ross shakes his head.
"I brought help, Dad. Not a distraction."
We spend the afternoon in the workshop. Maxwell shows me his tools and explains his process for selecting wood and planning projects.
He has a system for sourcing materials that involves relationships with local sawmills and lumber yards that go back thirty years.
He knows every wood dealer within a hundred miles by name.
He knows which mills produce the best hardwoods and which ones to avoid.
His knowledge is encyclopedic and deeply personal.
"My father taught me carpentry," he says at one point.
He's standing at the workbench adjusting a plane.
"He was a farmer but he built furniture in the winter when there was nothing else to do.
He taught me that the quality of a piece starts with the quality of the wood you choose.
You can do everything else right but if you start with bad wood you end with bad furniture. "
"That's a good philosophy."
"It applies to more than wood." He glances at Ross and then at me and I know exactly what he means. He's not being subtle and he's not trying to be. He's telling me that his son chose well. It's the kind of compliment that doesn't require acknowledgment. Just recognition.
Ross and I help Maxwell with the rocking horse for about two hours.
I sand the body while Ross works on shaping the rockers.
Maxwell moves between us offering guidance and corrections.
His teaching style is patient and direct.
He shows you how to hold the tool. He watches you use it.
If you're doing it wrong he adjusts your technique without making you feel incompetent.
If you're doing it right he nods and moves on.
I understand completely where Ross gets his temperament.
The patience. The attention to detail. The quiet competence.
The willingness to let things develop at their own pace without rushing or forcing.
All of it comes from this workshop and from this man who has spent his life building things carefully and well.
At one point Maxwell asks me about my work at City Hall. I tell him about the Records Department and the preservation project. He listens with genuine interest.
"Preserving records is important work," he says. "Most people don't think about it. They assume everything will just be there when they need it. But someone has to take care of it. Someone has to make sure the history doesn't get lost."
"That's exactly how I feel about it."
"Good. Then you're doing the right work." He pauses. "Ross tells me you've been going through a difficult time recently. I'm sorry about that. But from what I can see you're handling it with grace."
The directness surprises me. Not because it's inappropriate. Because it's kind. Maxwell doesn't tiptoe around things. He acknowledges what's there and moves forward. No drama. No pity. Just a simple statement of observation followed by a genuine expression of respect.
"Thank you, Maxwell. That means a lot."
"Call me Max. Everyone does except Ross. He insists on the full name because he says nicknames are for people who don't have enough respect for language." He shakes his head. "I raised a very particular young man."
"You raised a good one."
He looks at me over his glasses and nods slowly. "I like to think so."
We stay for dinner. Maxwell makes spaghetti and meatballs from a recipe he says his wife used to make.
He doesn't elaborate on his wife and I don't ask.
Ross told me she passed away when he was in high school.
The kitchen is warm and the food is simple and filling and the conversation flows easily between the three of us.
During dinner Maxwell tells me about the community.
The neighbors who bring him vegetables from their gardens in exchange for small carpentry repairs.
The church on Route 7 where he sometimes volunteers to maintain the historic pews.
The elementary school where he built a set of bookshelves for the library last year after the old ones collapsed.
"This town takes care of its people," he says.
"Always has. When my wife passed away the neighbors brought food every day for two months.
I had more casseroles than I knew what to do with.
I'm still finding Tupperware containers in the back of the cabinet that belong to people I haven't seen in years. "
"Did you grow up here?" I ask.
"Born and raised. My father farmed this land before me. I couldn't farm worth a damn so I learned to build things instead. The farming stopped but the building never did."
"And your wife?"
"Helen. She was from Millford originally.
We met at a church social when I was twenty and she was nineteen.
I proposed six months later. She said I was impatient.
I said I was efficient. She married me anyway and we spent thirty-two years together before cancer took her.
" He says this with calm matter-of-factness.
He has made peace with his grief. Not because it doesn't hurt.
Because he's carried it long enough to know how to hold it without breaking.
"She sounds wonderful."
"She was. Ross has her eyes. And her stubbornness. Don't let the quiet exterior fool you. This one will dig in on something he believes in and you will not move him."
Ross shakes his head. "Thanks, Dad."
"It's a compliment. Your mother never backed down from anything either. It's what made her remarkable."