Chapter 10 - The Unbroken Line
The small house I bought in Red Wing, Minnesota, sat on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River.
It was an old stone cottage built in the 1920s, with a deep front porch, thick oak window frames, and a garden plot in the back that had been choked with river weeds when I moved in during the late fall.
By May of the following year, the garden was cleared.
I had planted three rows of heirloom tomatoes, lavender along the stone walkway, and two small apple trees near the edge of the bluff where the wind came up from the water.
In the basement, I had set up Arthur’s old woodworking bench.
Every afternoon, after working in the garden, I went down to the basement, turned on the bright overhead shop light, and worked with Arthur’s hand-planes.
I was making wooden bowls out of fallen cedar logs I gathered along the riverbank.
It was hard, slow work. The cedar was tough, its grain twisting unpredictable ways that required patience and a steady, firm hand. If you pushed the chisel too fast, the wood would split along the growth rings, ruining three days of labor in a single second.
You had to follow the grain. You had to feel where the wood was strong and where it had grown brittle during the hard winters.
At four o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon, a small white mail truck pulled up to the curb in front of my stone cottage.
The mail carrier—a cheerful young woman named Sarah who always wore a blue wool hat—walked up the porch steps and set a small, heavy box on the bench beside the door.
"Special delivery, Mrs. Ward!" she called out, waving as she headed back down the walk. "Needs a signature, but I signed for you since you were in the yard!"
"Thank you, Sarah!" I called back.
I walked up to the porch, wiping my dusty hands on my canvas apron, and looked at the box.
The return address read: Federal Correctional Institution - Rochester, MN.
It was from Mark.
I sat down on the porch bench, the cold river breeze pulling at the white hair around my face, and opened the box with my pocketknife.
Inside, wrapped in brown butcher paper, was a small, hand-carved wooden bowl made of dark walnut.
It wasn't perfect. The rim was slightly uneven, the bottom a bit too thick, the varnish applied with a hand that had hesitated near the edges.
Inside the bowl was a single sheet of lined notebook paper.
Mom,
They have a shop class here. We work two hours a day after the laundry shift. The instructor said walnut was the hardest wood to turn because the knot holes don't show until you're halfway through the cut.
I don't expect you to answer this. I don't expect you to keep the bowl.
I just wanted you to know that I stopped taking the medication they gave us at the county jail. My head is clear now. For the first time in six years, my head is completely clear.
I remember Dad showing me how to use the lathe when I was twelve. I remember he told me that if you force the tool against a bad knot, the whole piece shatters in your face. You have to cut around it until the wood decides what it wants to be.
I'm sorry, Mom.
Mark
I held the small walnut bowl in my hands for a long time.
It was heavy, solid, smelling faintly of cedar oil and motor grease from the prison workshop.
I turned it over in my fingers, feeling the rough spots where his chisel had slipped, the small ridges where he had tried to smooth out a knot in the dark grain.
I didn't throw it into the trash.
I didn't take it down to the dumpster at the end of the street.
May you like
I carried it inside, set it on the center of my dark oak dining table, and placed three small, fresh apples from the garden inside its smooth wooden curve.
Then I walked out onto the front porch, sat down in my rocking chair, and watched the sun set over the river, the light turning the water from grey to gold, quiet and unbroken as far as the eye could see.
