Chapter 5 #3
It was time to face this final demon. She couldn’t find any other spot perfect for the last wedding gown’s photo shoot, and at the end of the day, it was just a wood shop. She could do this.
She took a deep breath and turned the key.
Mick had installed a pair of skylights in the roof that poured in plentiful natural light.
While he’d worked in one sunbeam, painstakingly carving a piece of wood, she'd loved to sit in the other sunbeam in his goofy beanbag chair and read until she got sleepy.
Then she'd do her best cat imitation, curling up in the beanbag for a nap.
It was those twin sunbeams that finally convinced her to face this place.
The final dress in Charlotte's collection was the twin of the stunning white silk gown Tessa had photographed at Jenna’s ranch.
The first dress had been completely unadorned, with a striking off-the-shoulder mermaid profile with a sweeping train.
The last dress was the exact same gown but made entirely of lace.
Tessa had no idea how many hours Charlotte had spent hand beading it, but the entirety of the gown was encrusted with thousands of faceted crystals.
It would sparkle like a diamond in direct sunlight.
The shop was paneled with reclaimed wood from a traditional red barn, a mix of bare wood and faded streaks of red.
Its rustic texture would be the perfect counterpoint to the extreme refinement of the magnificent gown.
The shop’s smell hit her first. Sawdust, linseed oil, and mixed aromas of cedar resin, oak tannin, musky walnut, and of course, the Christmas tree scent of pine.
One entire wall was taken up by long shelves of boards, carefully sorted and stacked.
The air was cold and still, as if time itself had stopped the last time Mick closed the door behind him and left this place.
Fern had told her Mick was out here the day of the Shoemacher fire working on a secret anniversary present of some kind for Tessa when the call had gone out to Cobbler Cove's volunteer fire fighters.
The sunlight was as magnificent as she remembered, creating a glorious column of light in front of the old barn wood wall. It was perfect. Charlotte's dress would glow like it was lit from within.
Her attention strayed back to the shop. Mick's tools hung on the pegboard wall exactly where he'd left them, each one outlined in black marker on the board so he'd know where everything went.
Chisels, planes, hand saws, clamps of every size were coated in a thick layer of dust but were still organized with precision on the wall.
Mick had respected his tools and treated them like old friends.
His workbench dominated the center of the room.
On it sat a half-finished project—a small wooden box with dovetail joints cut on three corners, the fourth corner still waiting for him to finish it.
A pencil lay beside it. On a small piece of wood that was obviously going to be the fourth side of the box, she spied the light marks he'd made to guide his next cut.
She picked up the pencil and held it for a long time. She wished she could feel something of Mick in it, some remnant of his spirit. But he was long gone from this place, and the pencil merely felt like a pencil in her hand.
What had the box been for? She would never know. The grief she locked away so carefully, containing it in a box far sturdier than the one Mick had been building, pressed against its walls. She felt it swelling, threatening to crack its enclosure.
She set the pencil down exactly where she'd found it and made herself look around.
On a shelf above the workbench, she spotted a cardboard box marked "Makayla" in Fern's handwriting. She pulled it down and opened it.
Inside were wooden toys. A little horse with a yarn mane and tail.
A set of blocks with letters carved into each face.
A rattle shaped like a flower. A tiny rocking horse no bigger than her palm, every detail perfect—the mane, the saddle, the tiny, curved runners.
All hand-carved by Mick. All sanded smooth and finished with the same care and tenderness he'd put into the kitchen table and the staircase and every piece of Fern's house he'd touched with his gifted hands.
A sob escaped her, not only for Mick not getting to watch his daughter grow up, but also for Makayla not getting to be loved for longer by her father who'd adored her.
He'd made these for Makayla when she was a baby. Tessa remembered him working on them in the evenings while she nursed their daughter in the living room. He sanded each piece with obsessive care, saying, "She'll put everything in her mouth. Better make sure it's smooth enough to eat."
She'd thought these toys were lost in the shuffle after the fire, when she'd packed up her shattered life and moved into the apartment above the store.
But Fern had kept them all, carefully packed and preserved the way she'd done with everything about Mick.
Tessa glanced heavenward and mouthed a silent thank you to her mother-in-law.
Gently, she lifted the little rocking horse out of the box.
Pressing it against her heart, she let herself cry.
Not the careful, controlled tears she permitted herself when grief caught her off guard in the shower or late at night after Makayla was asleep, but a real cry.
The ugly kind. With soggy tears and a runny nose and total surrender of the composure she wore as armor every single day.
She cried for the hands that had carved these toys with such love.
For the man who'd checked every surface against his own cheek to make sure nothing would hurt his daughter.
For the father Makayla barely remembered and the husband Tessa missed every single morning when she woke up in a bed that was too wide and too empty.
She cried for the life they all might have had.
When it finally passed, she wiped her face on the hem of her ugly cotton t-shirt, noting that at least the soft fabric was good for something.
Judith would have been appalled at her daughter using a garment as a handkerchief, and she felt a moment’s satisfaction at flaunting her rigid upbringing.
Tugging her T-shirt back into place, she carried the box of toys into the house.
Makayla found the box on the kitchen table after school. She opened it, and her face went through a series of expressions that hurt Tessa to watch—confusion, recognition, and then something soft and wondering that made her look much younger than her eleven years.
She lifted the little rocking horse and traced the grain the way Tessa's had. Like mother, like daughter—reaching for a man through the things he'd made.
"Can I keep them in my room?"
"Of course you can, sweetheart. They’re yours."
Makayla carried the box upstairs with reverence.
She came back downstairs in what Tessa thought of as her "farm uniform"—a pair of pink sweatpants wearing out in the seat, a T-shirt with a pink pony on it, and a pair of old sneakers she'd outgrown but stubbornly kept wearing because they had butterflies embroidered on their canvas sides.
Makayla went outside and sat in Fern's small blue rocking chair, which fit her perfectly.
Fern had barely topped five feet tall, and after her latest growth spurt, Makayla was almost that height.
Sparing an annoyed look for Hamlet in his usual position stretched out from one end of the sofa to the other, Tessa sat in the armchair facing the living room window, watching her daughter thoughtfully.
Brown Dog settled at Makayla's feet with a contented sigh. Captain hop-walked out of the barn and came to lay on Makayla's other side. Maple, ever faithful to Captain, followed him across the yard and stood quietly next to the porch, her nose touching the railing.
Makayla rested one hand on Brown Dog's back, the other scratching behind Captain's ear.
Her face held a relaxed, content expression Tessa was seeing a more often these days.
This wasn't the tense, anxious child who practiced violin for forty-five minutes every day without being asked, kept her room spotless, and folded her hands in her lap in public the way Tessa had taught her.
A new version of her daughter was emerging out here in the country.
A freer child whose tension was starting to unwind.
Taking care of this farm and its crazy menagerie for a year might be an almighty pain in the neck, but it was almost worth the hassle to see Makayla without a care in the world like this.
Almost.
Hamlet grunted and rolled off the couch, landing on all fours.
He waddled over beside Tessa and nudged her hand with his nose.
Startled, she glanced down at his bright brown eyes, fuzzy perked ears, and slightly opened mouth.
She could swear he was smiling at her. He was actually kind of cute like this.
His hair was coarse but not unpleasant to the touch. Absently, she used her nails to lightly scratch his pink skin through it. He grunted a low, rhythmic sound of pleasure, uh-uh-uh, that Tessa found surprisingly soothing. Rather like when Chairman Meow purred.
She considered idly that the porch had room for another chair beside Makayla's. But who she would be if she filled that empty space? Not a socialite's daughter. Not a dead man's widow. Who was she when she wasn't performing a role someone else had written for her?
And why hadn't that question ever occurred to her before now?
Maybe she should thank Fern for forcing her and Makayla to come out here for a year and slow down the frantic pace of their lives.
With a last look at the glittering beauty of the lake, Tessa sighed and headed for the kitchen to begin preparing the animals' evening medications. This life might be slower paced, but it was relentless in its own way. The animals’ literal lives depended on her being there for them morning and night without fail.