The chainsaw tears into the fallen spruce, the engine vibrating through the ground beneath my boots. Tom braces his stance and guides the blade through the trunk with the steady patience of someone who trusts a tool to do its job. Sweat spreads across the back of his shirt, darkening the fabric where it clings to muscle that hasn’t softened with age.
While he works, I drag the loose branches off the trail and stack them into a rough pile for burning later. Pine sap smears sticky across my gloves, and the scent of fresh wood lifts sharp and green where the blade bites through the trunk.
When Tom finally releases the trigger, and the forest settles back around us, I give a nod of appreciation. “Not too shabby for a city boy.”
Tom sets the machine aside and nudges one half of the trunk with his boot to test the balance before we both lean into it. The wood shifts reluctantly, rough bark scraping under our gloves as we wrestle the pieces off the trail. My shoulder joint grinds in a way that reminds me it has been taking orders for more than sixty years.
Tom straightens first. His gaze flicks briefly to the way I roll my arm before letting it hang loose again. He does not make a big show of noticing, which tells me he noticed everything. “You good?”
I wipe sweat off my brow with the back of my wrist and pick up a handful of broken branches. The smaller ones snap under my boot before I toss them onto the growing burn pile. “Aw yeah. These old bones just don’t want to work like they used to.”
Tom’s expression doesn’t change, but he tilts his head slightly, waiting. The silence stretches just long enough to make the point.
“Really. It’s been worse,” I add with a shrug and bite back a wince as it pulls at my shoulder.
My words seem to satisfy him. He narrows his eyes but lets the subject drop the way men do when they recognize a boundary and respect it.
We move farther down the trail together. The storm scattered fallen trees through this stretch of woods like someone knocked them over in a careless line. Clearing them has turned into a proper morning’s work. The path dips between two slabs of granite before climbing toward the ridge where the harbor flashes silver through the trees.
Tom crouches beside the next trunk and works with the quiet confidence of someone who has spent a lifetime trusting tools and the muscle memory that comes with them. While he trims away the branches, I drag the upper section of the log off the path and roll it into the brush. Sawdust dusts his forearms and sticks to the sweat there. He wipes it away with a swipe of his hand.
“You didn’t grow up in the city,” I say, nodding toward the saw.
A faint smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Boston.”
“That explains the attitude, but not the way you have with power tools.”
The laugh he lets out is quiet but genuine. He stretches his back before adding, “Firefighter.”
I glance over. “Yeah?”
“Thirty-two years.”
A low whistle escapes me before I can stop it. “That’ll leave a mark.”
Tom shrugs, the movement small but heavy with things he doesn’t bother explaining. “Some of them.”
We finish clearing the trunk and shove the last section into the underbrush. It lands with a muffled thud that startles a squirrel into a tirade above us. Tom brushes his hands together and grabs his water bottle.
“And you. Military, right?” he asks, studying me over the rim as he drinks.
I nod once. “Army.”
He lowers the bottle slowly and cocks his head but doesn’t make any stupid remarks. People who have spent long enough around violence tend to spot it in others the same way mechanics recognize the sound of a bad engine.
We start down the trail again. Sunlight flickers between the branches overhead, breaking across the dirt path in patches of gold.
“You miss it?” Tom asks after a while.
“The Army?”
He nods.
I step over a tangle of exposed roots before answering. “Some parts.”
Tom doesn’t rush to fill the silence, like he understands that answers sometimes take a minute to surface.
“I miss knowing what the day is for,” I say finally.
