Chapter 31
Chapter 31 — Dry Fit
Alex wakes early Thursday and dry-fits Maya's bookshelf in the workshop, discovering one dado is slightly off and fixing it. He drives to Holloway's Hardware for Titebond glue and Gene gives him advice on clamping sequence. At the commune, Maya finds him in the workshop and sees the bookshelf for the first time. She's quiet, then asks if he'll help her load her truck when she leaves. Alex spends the afternoon sanding and applying the first coat of finish. Eleanor finds him at the creek that evening and tells him she's leaving the commune in September to move in with her sister in Asheville. The chapter ends with Alex alone in his cabin, staring at the pine knot eye, realizing the summer is ending in ways he didn't anticipate.
Thursday. Alex woke before the light. He lay on his back and looked at the ceiling. The pine knot eye looked back. It had been watching him all summer. He'd stopped minding.
He got up. He pulled on shorts and walked to the workshop barefoot. The dew was cold on the grass. The morning was gray and still, the way mornings are before they decide what to become.
He uncovered the cedar pieces. He stood them up on the bench, one by one, the way Gene had shown him — each piece oriented in the direction it would sit in the finished piece. The sides. The shelves. The back panel. The top cap. The base. He lined them up and stepped back and looked at them the way a man looks at something he's about to assemble.
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