By the time we returned to the rocking chair, the workshop was quieter.
Frank had packed several boxes.
Cole was helping him move a few smaller items away from the shelves.
Nathan stood beside the chair, running his fingers along the armrest.
The wood had been sanded smooth.
The seat was in place.
The chair looked finished except for one last coat.
Nathan leaned forward to examine the surface.
“It still needs a little work.”
I stood beside him.
“Can I help?”
He didn't answer immediately.
I waited.
He had spent weeks working on the chair with Cole and Frank.
I had arrived late in the process, after the lies had been discovered and the secret had already caused damage.
I couldn't expect him to hand me a role simply because I had finally decided to be involved.
He looked at the chair again.
Then he turned toward me.
“Do you know how to do it?”
“Not very well.”
He gave a faint smile.
“Then I'll show you.”
I felt something loosen inside my chest.
It wasn't forgiveness.
Not entirely.
It wasn't proof that everything between us had been repaired.
It was a small opening.
I accepted it carefully.
Nathan handed me a cloth.
“Start here. Use a little at a time.”
I looked at the surface he indicated.
“How much is too much?”
He gave me a patient look that reminded me of Michael explaining something he believed should be obvious.
“Too much.”
I laughed.
Nathan smiled.
I began working where he had shown me.
He watched closely, ready to correct me if I made a mistake.
I didn't mind.
For once, I wasn't trying to organize the project or decide how it should be done.
I was letting my son teach me.
The cloth moved slowly over the wood.
I could see the grain beneath the surface.
I could see the places where Nathan had spent extra time sanding.
He had worked carefully.
He had been patient with the parts that didn't fit at first.
He had returned to the chair weekend after weekend because finishing it mattered to him.
I wondered how many times he had looked at it and imagined his father standing beside him.
I wondered whether he had ever wished Michael could show him how to use a tool.
I wondered whether the chair had become a way to ask questions that he didn't know how to ask aloud.
I didn't ask him any of those things.
Not yet.
I continued working.
When I finished the section, Nathan inspected it.
“That's good.”
I looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“Just don't rush the next part.”
I smiled.
“I'll try.”
We worked together for a while.
There was no need to fill every moment with conversation.
Sometimes Nathan pointed to a place I had missed.
Sometimes I asked him whether a surface was ready.
He answered without looking away from the chair.
The work gave us something simple to do while we learned how to be around each other again.
Eventually, Nathan stepped back.
He examined the chair from several angles.
“Dad never got to see it like this.”
The sentence stopped me.
I put the cloth down.
“No,” I said. “He didn't.”
Nathan looked at the armrest.
“I kept thinking about what it would have been like if he had finished it.”
I stood beside him.
“He wanted to finish it before you were born.”
Nathan turned toward me.
“Was he really excited about me?”
I looked at my son.
He was sixteen years old.
He had spent two months lying about where he slept because he wanted to finish something his father had started.
He had risked his mother's trust because he was afraid that asking for help would mean being told no.
And now he was asking whether his father had wanted him.
I couldn't pretend that I hadn't heard the question beneath the question.
I stepped closer.
“Your dad talked about you constantly before you were born.”
Nathan stared at me.
“He did?”
“All the time.”
I told him how Michael had imagined holding him.
I told him how he had talked about teaching him things.
I told him about the chair and how he had planned to use it when the baby arrived.
“He wanted to be there for all of it,” I said.
Nathan looked down.
I could see him trying to take in the words.
I wished Michael could have told him those things himself.
I wished Nathan could have grown up with his father beside him.
But I couldn't change what had happened.
I could only tell him what I knew.
And I could stop keeping those memories to myself.
Nathan reached out and touched the armrest again.
“I wish I remembered more.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes I feel like everyone else remembers him better than I do.”
I thought about Frank.
I thought about the workshop.
I thought about the notebook and the photographs we had taken.
“You don't have to remember everything on your own,” I told him. “We can talk about him together.”
Nathan looked at me.
I held his gaze.
“I should have done that sooner.”
He didn't say it was all right.
He didn't need to.
We had already talked about my silence.
We had already talked about his lies.
Neither of us could undo those things by saying the right words now.
What we could do was make different choices.
We could arrange visits honestly.
We could answer questions instead of changing the subject.
We could tell stories about Michael without treating every memory as something too painful to touch.
We could admit when we were upset without disappearing from each other's lives.
Nathan moved toward the chair and checked the final section.
Then he looked back at me.
“Can you hold this for a second?”
He handed me the cloth.
I held it while he examined the finish.
The chair stood beneath the window, the light falling across the smooth wood.
I thought about the drawing in the box.
For our little boy.
Those words had been written before Nathan was born.
They had waited in a box for three years while I tried to avoid the pain of remembering.
Nathan had found another way to reach them.
He had gone to Frank's house.
He had worked with Cole.
He had asked questions and listened to stories.
He had made mistakes along the way, serious ones that needed consequences.
But beneath those mistakes was a boy who wanted to know his father.
I couldn't ignore the first part because I understood the second.
And I couldn't ignore the second because I was angry about the first.
Both belonged to my son.
Both needed my attention.
When Nathan finished checking the chair, he took the cloth back from me.
“That's enough for today.”
I nodded.
We stood beside it for another moment.
Then he began putting the tools away.
I helped without telling him where everything belonged.
When he asked for something, I handed it to him.
When he wanted to do a task himself, I stepped aside.
The workshop was still full of things we couldn't take.
The house would still be sold.
Frank would still move.
And our family would still have to live with the loss of Michael.
Finishing the chair hadn't repaired everything.
It hadn't made the last three years disappear.
But it had given Nathan and me a place to begin.
As we prepared to leave, I looked back at the chair.
I thought about the night Denise had called.
I thought about the fear that had filled my kitchen.
I thought about how close I had come to seeing my son only as someone who had lied to me.
I was still his mother.
I still had rules to enforce.
He still had trust to rebuild.
But I was learning that being his mother also meant making room for the questions he was afraid to ask.
And sometimes it meant sitting beside him, holding a cloth, and letting him show me how to finish what his father had started.
Source: kaylestore.net
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: Three Weeks After the Night Everything Changed, I Finally Brought My Husband’s Unfinished Rocking Chair Into Our Home, but I Was Not Prepared for How Quiet the Room Would Become
I Thought My Son Was Spending His Weekends With His Best Friend Until One Phone Call Made Eight Ordinary Fridays Look Different
Part 8 of 12
