I pull the jacket on and leave through the sliding glass door. The afternoon air feels good on my face. A few birds chirp in the trees that have already started to bud.
There’s a loose section of the back porch railing that needs to be fixed. It won’t keep me busy long enough, but at least it’s a job. I get the toolkit from the garage and stabilize and reattach the railing.
Then I walk around looking for something else to do. I pull a few weeds, fix some loose flagstones, clean out the birdbath, and rearrange the garden tools in the garage.
A stack of logs sits behind the garage, waiting to be split into firewood. I’d been postponing doing that until I could get a chainsaw, but suddenly it’s urgent that I get the job done right now. I grab an ax from the garage and haul a log from the pile onto an old tree stump.
I lift the ax and slam it into the wood. Hard satisfaction fills me when the blade strikes. The wood splits, two halves falling to the sides. I cut them each again, then drag a new log onto the cutting block and lift the ax.
Thunk. It’s a good feeling, a good sound, the wood splitting cleanly halfway down. I slice through it to separate the halves and go back for another log.
I lose track of how long I’m chopping, but my hands start to burn with blisters, and my muscles strain. Sweat drips down my forehead. Crack thunk crack thunk.
The pile of firewood grows until there are only a few logs left. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, my chest heaving with exertion. The logs at the bottom are especially thick, from the widest part of the trunk.
I slam the ax into the largest log, but the blade sticks in the wood. With a grunt, I yank it out and try again. Again it sticks.
Anger claws at me. I pull the blade out and bring it down a third time. Fucking stuck.
“Goddammit.”
I swing the ax over my head and strike it downward as hard as I can. Though there’s some satisfaction in the sound of the metal hitting wood, the ax barely makes a dent in the thick log.
I lift the ax and bring it down again and again, mutilating the log with deep grooves but failing to split the damned thing in half.
“Shit.” My lungs burn. I strike the ax down again, sinking it halfway into the log. I yank at the blade, but can’t pull it out with one try. “Fucking stupid piece of wood…motherfucker…”
“Whoa, man. What’d that log ever do to you?”
I jerk my head up at the sound of Archer’s voice. My brother is standing by the garage, his hands on his hips, looking at me with puzzlement. I drag a breath into my aching lungs and toss the ax aside.
“Just…uh, splitting firewood.”
“Yeah, you’re going at it like a madman,” he remarks.
The log is now scarred with crossed ruts and furrows like an unsolvable maze. I shove it with my foot and send it crashing to the ground. I sink down onto the tree stump and rest my elbows on my knees, all the fight draining from me.
Archer picks up the discarded ax and goes back to the garage. He returns with my toolbox, a notepad, and a grease pencil.
“Come on,” he says.
I look up. “Where?”
“Just come on.” He strides toward the woods.
I glance at the house. I have my cell phone in my pocket, so Claire can reach me if she needs to. I follow my brother.
Archer walks through the groves of trees, his boots crunching on the dried leaves and undergrowth, patches still covered with mud and icy slush. He pauses a couple of times, looks up, then keeps going.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
He stops underneath an old pine tree with thick, low-hanging branches that fork out over an open grove. He reaches into the toolkit and tosses me the measuring tape.
“This one has a good, solid V in the middle for support,” he says, pointing to where the trunk splits into two parts. “I’m thinking we could do an eight by eight platform, maybe with a rope bridge across to that tree there, depending on the architecture. Angled roof, at least four windows, maybe a balcony. Definitely a rope ladder.”
It takes a second for my brain to process all that. “You…you’re talking about a tree house?”