The Woodworker’s Heart

The Woodworker’s Heart

Grace Ashby, First Place

The ambulance left the neighborhood with the somber pace of a hearse, the red exterior strangely dark in comparison to the bright greens of the summer day. Cal sagged against the pillar of his front porch and reached up to finger the leather cord around his neck. The neighborhood was quiet for a Saturday morning. Children were kept inside their homes to avoid disturbing the somber silence while their parents peeked through their windows to see what was going on. The sound of the ambulance’s tires crunching against the asphalt road echoes in his ears long after it vanished from view. Cal wasn’t sure how long he stood there on the porch of their red brick house, several hours maybe, as the soft morning sun shifted into the brilliance of full day. He needed to get to work soon. He could feel the urgency begin to bubble up from the empty pit of his stomach. Cal closed his eyes. All he needed was a moment, a little pause in the hands of the clock to soak it all in before he lurched forward into a final jagged burst of reality. Two days. He had two days. “I’m sorry for your loss Mr. Oakheart. Is there anything I can do to help?” A hand landed on his shoulder and Cal looked up to see Charlie Johnson looking at him with his young face creased with empathy. “It’s Cal, kid,” remarked Cal, the words a reflex after three years of repeating them to the young man living in the home across the street. Charlie just shrugged, a boyish grin Cal had seen many times slipping onto his face as he ran his other hand through his short blond hair. “Four years with you as my woodshop teacher is a hard habit to break,” said Charlie. Cal had taught the woodshop and U.S. history classes at the Rockwood high school for decades before he retired. Leah had been the English teacher for 11th grade. While Cal was never one for picking favorites, Charlie had been one of the good ones. The kid had a talent for woodworking and the work ethic to back it up. A pity he never kept up with it when he went to college. Cal didn’t blame him. Engineering is far easier to make a living off of than woodworking. Still, it had been a pleasant surprise for him and Leah when their former student moved in with his wife in the house across the street from them five years ago. Leah liked to invite the young couple over

for Sunday dinner when they had the time. His stomach clenched at the thought; there would be no more Sunday dinners.

The playfulness of the often-repeated joke fell away. Charlie’s smile faded and he leaned forward to stare at Cal with melancholy teak eyes as he asked, “Seriously though Cal, is there anything Claire or I can do for you? Any errands to run? Or someone we can call for you? Could we bring you a casserole? You shouldn’t have to cook for yourself right now.”

“I appreciate the thought, son, but I can handle it. You know how Leah cooks, cooked. There are enough leftovers to last me a week.” Cal pushed away from the porch post and turned his back to the street, to Charlie. The tips of his fingers tingled as he glanced in the direction of his woodshop. He had delayed long enough. He trudged to his front door and froze with his hand on the handle. He didn’t want to go inside. Didn’t want to walk through the empty rooms that would never hold Leah, with the warmth of her wide smile and slender hands, in them again.

Had that warmth already faded away in the few hours since the EMTs took her away? He wasn’t sure he could bear to find out. Cal couldn’t remember what it was like to live alone. It was too soon. He thought they would have another decade or two at least. His hands trembled. He had to go in, he had already wasted several hours. The wood would be hard to carry on his own. He turned back to Charlie. “I suppose there is one thing you could do. Follow me.”

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Charlie’s footsteps echoed across the hardwood floors behind him. The living room was untouched from the visit of the EMTs. Leah’s knitting lay on the cherry side table, an anniversary gift, next to the worn brown leather sofa.

One of her quilts was thrown haphazardly across the back of the couch, as though she had just gotten up to grab a book and would be back any second. Cal swallowed and took a sharp turn to the left. His fingertips reached out to drag across the white marble countertops and brush against the handmade maple cabinets as he cut through the kitchen. Ignoring the open door of the master bedroom, Cal stepped into Leah’s sewing room. Scraps of fabric littered the floor like the flower petals on their wedding day. A half-finished quilt top was spread out on the floor, the rest of it laid out like puzzle pieces next to it. He picked his way across the room to the large hope chest sitting below the wide window that gave a perfect view of their backyard, as well as his “huge monstrosity” of a shop, as Leah liked to call it.

Cal ran a hand along the glossy lid, marred with the occasional scratch from over the years. It was longer than traditional hope chests, it had to be to fit what was inside. Cal reached into the neck of his shirt and grabbed the key he had hanging from a cord around his neck. His wedding ring hung right next to the key. Leah had insisted he stop wearing it on his ring finger after one too many visits to the ER to get the ring cut off because he had stubbed his finger and the ring was cutting off blood

circulation due to the swelling. He never took the thing off except to shower. Leah had a matching one strung on a delicate chain. The old-fashioned key next to the ring was long and skinny with a wide loop on one end and two teeth on the other. Cal slid it into the lock and popped open the chest. The smell of spices, Tide detergent, and cedar wafted up to greet him. He ran a hand across the carefully folded quilts filling the chest, most of them were Leah’s handiwork, although he knew a few were her great-grandmother’s and grandmother’s that had been passed down to her.

“Help me move these out of the way,” instructed Cal. “What we need will be at the bottom.”

“Alright.” The younger man silently joined Cal and the two men made quick work of the quilts. At the very bottom of the chest was a large bundle wrapped in a blanket to protect it. It took both Cal and Charlie to maneuver the bundle out of the chest. Cal pulled the fabric away to reveal the aged wood inside.

“This and the chest were my wedding present to Leah. This wood is from a Cocobolo tree my father cut down in the woods behind this house on the day I was born, just like his father did for him and his father before him.”

“That’s a pretty cool tradition,” remarked Charlie. Then his head jerked towards Cal. “Wait, a Cocobolo tree!? I thought those only grew in Central America. Cocobolo boards sell for

$50-$65 a foot!” He reverently ran a hand along the sanded boards, tracing the red and orange variations in the grain.

“I see you remembered some of what I taught you. As far as I’m aware, the copse of Cocobolo trees growing on my family’s land is the only one in the state of Utah or even this side of the states,” said Cal. He pressed his hand against the wood. It pulsed against his fingers, echoing the steady beat of his heart.

“When my many times great-grandfather, Elias Oakheart, first found the grove of cocobolo trees, he gave his wife, Sarah, the planks of heartwood from the first tree he cut down. They were fairly old for the time, their children all grown and married, and she had been ill for a

while. They knew they didn’t have much time left together. He presented the wood to her as a symbol that she would always be his heart and home no matter what and asked her what she wanted him to make it into. She asked him to build a casket so that even in death, she would have the warmth of his love to accompany her. When she died shortly after, they didn’t need a funeral wreath, the casket was covered in intricate carvings of lifelike flowers and birds. People at the time said he must have poured his own life into it because Elias died shortly after. It’s been a tradition to give our heartwood to our spouse on the night of our marriage ever since. They keep the wood in the heart of our home until the day they can’t, and then we bury it with them.”

Charlie made a small choking noise, and Cal looked over to see the young man staring wide-

eyed at him. Cal chuckled before explaining, “Leah thought it was weird at first too. It’s not about death, it’s about love beyond death. It’s a promise that we’ll be faithful to them for the rest of our lives and beyond. That’s why we use the heartwood of the Cocobolo, we’re giving our significant other our heart.”

Charlie scratched at his chin and mumbled, “I suppose that’s kind of romantic.”

Cal pulled out one half of the curved casket cover of the unassembled casket free of the pile. Every piece was prepared so that it just needed to be assembled. That way he could focus on the finishing touches without running out of time. He handed the lid to Charlie.

“Start taking these out to the shop– it should be unlocked.” Cal glanced down at the dark blue dressing gown he had pulled over his pajamas before the EMTs arrived. “I need to get dressed.”

He had a lot of work to do.

………...

Cal stepped into the workshop in a wellworn pair of jeans and a t-shirt covered in stains from varnish and wood stain. Charlie was standing in the middle of the room, the pieces of the casket laid out on the main worktable. The younger man was looking around the wide room, his eyes wistful as he examined the various table saws, sanders, and planers. He clapped Charlie on the shoulder.

“Brings back old memories, doesn’t it,” said Cal. “I can still remember you as a scrawny lad struggling to lift uncut maple planks in the woodshop at school. Seems you picked up the pace of your wood lugging skills since heading off to college. Are you sure you didn’t sneak in some woodworking with that engineering degree that you didn’t tell me about?”

Charlie shrugged and smiled longingly at the table saw in the left corner of the shop before he said, “I wish. It’s one of the few things I miss about high school. I have some handyman tools for work around the house, but Claire and I don’t make enough money to buy any serious equipment right now. We have to pay off our student debt before anything else.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get a hold of some tools of the trade eventually,” said Cal. He hid a smile. Oh, Charlie would be getting more than just a few tools and it would be a lot sooner than the young man expected. Cal was glad he had listened to Leah’s suggestion about who to leave everything to when they had rewritten their will a few years ago. If there was one good thing about this situation, it was that Cal could leave knowing that he and Leah had made one young couple’s life easier.

Charlie glanced back and forth between Cal and the pieces of the casket. “Can I help?” he asked.

Cal opened his mouth to say no, that he didn’t need any more help, that he’d like to be alone to craft his grief into a final masterpiece. He paused. Cal had been there for his father when his mother died. Had worked in silence beside the older man as he guided Cal through one final lesson. A lesson about life and death and accepting where one ends and the other begins. Cal didn’t have a son. He didn’t have

anyone to pass down the stories and traditions of his family to and a part of him ached to think that there would be nothing left behind after him. Centuries of ancestry and wisdom erased by a single man. He stared at his former student. Charlie was already inheriting the house and land. Maybe he could leave a little bit of the legend behind it all with the young man as well.

“All right.”

…………………………………

Assembling the box of the casket flew by as Charlie helped hold boards in place and marked where the handles would go. Cal didn’t bother to hide what he was doing as he worked. The younger man didn’t comment as the joints under Cal’s hands melded together without glue and handles clung to their correct positions without a single screw. His wide eyes and open mouth frozen under the quiet weight of Cal showing him secrets that no one outside of his family had ever seen. There were others that knew or guessed of course, it would be hard to get proper death certificates for the Oakhearts who fell to the curse otherwise, but no one outside of the Oakheart bloodline had actually seen their magic at work before. Cal ran a hand over the sharp edges of the box, smoothing them out into rounded curves. There was a stiffness to his skin that hadn’t been there before. Charlie’s shirt felt strange underneath his fingers as he gently turned the younger man away from the worktable by his shoulder and towards the door.

“Thank you,” Cal said, “but I need to do the rest alone. The carving… it’s a private process. And it’s getting late, go home to your Claire.”

He pushed the young man outside and shut the door behind him before he could respond.

He didn’t have time for questions. Besides, what he had told Charlie was true.

Lifting up the detached pieces of lid, his joints creaking like branches in the wind, Cal carried it over to the long counter that lined the far wall of his woodshop. Setting the wood down with a groan, Cal stared at the wall in front of him. It was covered in the tools of his trade, chisels, knives, and mallets of all different shapes and sizes. The blades gleamed in the light of the shop, sharpened to perfection. Cal selected his favorite chisel and mallet from the wall, his hands curling around the worn handles with decades of familiarity. They had been a birthday present from his wife. Technically, he didn’t need to use them, not with his gift, but it felt fitting that he used them now.

Small curls of wood drifted onto the floor as he traced what would be delicate forget-menots bloomed at each edge of the cocobolo lid. They had been Leah’s favorite flowers. The shaving crunched under his leather work boots and clung to his worn jeans as he shifted around, the handle of the chisel pressing into his palm as he carved out a bit of wood here and there. The outlines of long vines with smooth leaves grew along the sides of the Cocobolo board with every score of his blade. Leah had always loved nature. She liked to joke that it was one of the reasons she had married

him, so that she could live in a home that always smelled of freshly cut pine and maple. The outlines finished, Cal set down his tools. He sank his fingers into the wood and it rippled like water. He stretched and pulled vines into life. Tickled out each petal of the forget-menots. Little house finches flitted around his fingers before perching on delicate vines and twigs. Cal felt the fire of his own life flicker and surge down his arms with each new creation. The hours drifted away as Cal worked, the old man pausing only to wipe away sweat. He needed every second he could spare to finish this in time. The sweat on his brow soaked into the sawdust covering his skin, creating a sticky paste. The familiar scent of freshly carved wood filled his nose and settled into the depths of his lungs.

The sun was beginning to set when he finally finished. His back groaning in protest at the endless work, Cal put his tools away. Placing the two halves of the casket lid on top of the box, he smoothed the hinges into place and took a step back. The finished casket cover was a work of art, the thick cluster of forget-menots at each corner looked like they had grown there. The graceful deer and delicate sparrows peeking out from the flowers and dancing along the vines looked as though they were alive. Cal had been well-known for the realism of his carvings. His wife said it was like he had a magic touch with wood, bringing everything he carved to life. He smiled at the thought, massaging his sore hands. The wrinkled skin of his hands was far more rigid than it should be. His knuckles cracked as he moved his fingers, stiffer than they had been the day before but still manageable. A magic touch. Trust Leah to hit the nail right on the head without realizing it.

Sighing, Cal took a can of Country Fresh lemonade from the mini fridge by the door of his shop before closing the door behind him and walking back to the house. He and Leah had lived in the simple single-floor brick home for decades. It was tiny compared to his shop, which he had built in the empty lot behind their house, but you could fit a family of five or six easily in it. They just hadn’t been able to.

His stiff joints whined with the two oak planks beneath him as he ascended to his wooden front porch. With a relieved sigh, he sank onto his sturdy cypress chair sitting on the porch. The sun-warmed wood cradled his aching muscles. Popping the tab of the can open, Cal took a long sip of the sweet lemonade as he stared out at the street of houses lit orange with the light of the setting sun. He and Leah had always loved people watching. It was a great way to end a long day of woodworking for him and teaching for her. It felt a bit strange for him to be doing it without Leah at his side, but the old habit was impossible to break. Cal’s eyes scanned the row of neat suburban houses in front of him for anything interesting. The street was mostly quiet, everyone inside having dinner except for the Johnsons across the street.

Charlie and his wife were struggling to maneuver a large IKEA box through their front door. Squinting his eyes, Cal made out the words ‘Dining Room Table’ printed on the side of the box. The picture of said table set