“Thank you, Mike. That means a lot. Hey, I’d love to see your man cave Grammy told me about.” Her eyes were wide with curiosity and mischief. I loved that she was interested.
“Speaking of that, I don’t think I’ve told you how much I love my wedding band. I can’t stop looking at it.”
She smiled, pleased with my statement. “There’s a beautiful artisan Vicky told me about. When I saw it, I knew it was made for you.”
I wanted to say,Iwas made for her as well, but decided to just smile back.
“Okay, change into something you don’t mind getting dirty, then I’ll show you myworkshop.”
A few minutes later, we walked down the back patio steps and took the cement paver path to my shed. Grammy referred to it as a workshop, but it was a glorified shed most people stored lawnmowers and such.
“Oh, the smell of this place is amazing,” Ren said, picking up scraps of wood and smelling them. I laughed to myself, knowing I did the same thing.
“I’ve been working with cedar lately. That’s what smells so good.” I lifted a cloth off the gift I’d made for her while she was looking around, picking up tools and smiling.
“Mike, this is incredible,” she said, looking around as she spun in a circle. When her gaze came back to me, she looked down at what I had in my hands. “Oh my gosh, that’s beautiful.”
She walked over to me, and I handed it to her. Turning it around, her hands reverently passed over the striations in the wood. Engraved in the corner were gardenias.
“It’s for you. Well, forus, I guess. It’s a cutting board for all that stir-fry I intend to make you eat after your laugh fest at my expense.”
She chuckled and brought it to her nose, inhaling with a hum. Her fingers traced the flower’s outline. “I forgive you for your lack of culinary prowess. It’s beautiful. Thank you so much.” Stepping closer, she kissed my cheek.
“You’re welcome. Glad you like it. The gardenia reminds me of you.”
“Mike, it’s perfect and incredibly sweet. Grammy was right. You could easily sell these.” She was still marveling over it.
Everything about woodworking brought me joy, but selling the pieces I’d made didn’t seem feasible. I gave most of them away to friends who reacted the same way as Ren had.
“Think so?”
Ren looked at me. “Absolutely. Once our design firm is up and running, I intend to feature these proudly. No matter what happens, I will help you see your worth.”
My eyes narrowed, trying to decipher what she’d meant, but she interrupted me. “Look at how beautiful this is.”
Picking up a bowl I’d worked on that didn’t come out perfectly, I said, “I don’t know about that. But this mistake might work for what you asked for. A place for our keys and stuff.”
“Mistake? Mike, that little groove makes it unique, one of a kind. People pay top dollar in Italy for something like this because they know it wasn’t made by a machine.”
“I didn’t think about it like that.” She was looking closely at some of my tools. The shed was small, so I squeezed behind her and reached around her to pick up the block plane.
“This one is what creates those curly shavings. It’s called a block plane. Here, I’ll show you.” I picked up a piece of cedar left over from the cutting board to use as an example.
“You get a good grip on the wood and push the plane over it slowly,” I said, demonstrating the movement. Ren seemed to be holding her breath. When I leaned over more, she had the same giddy look on her face when I’d dipped her at the wedding.
Thoroughly enjoying having that effect on my wife, I continued. With every stroke of the plane, I pulled her in closer, trying not to laugh at the way she kept clearing her throat. My chest was pressed against her back, and I couldn’t hold the laughter in any longer.
With a grunt, she elbowed me in the ribs, making me bark out a laugh.
“You, sir, are no gentleman,” she said, with an embarrassed smile, wiping her forehead.
“Never said I was one. See. You just keep making my point without me even trying,Spitfire.” I rubbed my ribs with a grimace.
Ren started fussing at me in Italian, her hands waving about as she spoke. One of these days, she was going to hurt herself with all that flailing about.
“Okay, fine,” she said, catching her breath from her outburst. “We’re even for the stir-fry comment. Come on, Max is going to think we forgot about him. I’ll cook tonight while you go get him.”
After a meal of delicious stir-fry,(thank you very much), which my wife seemed to enjoy, the three of us settled into the living room to watch a movie. She refused to use the cutting board I’d made for her, saying she wanted to just look at it for a while in its unmarred state. I preened as I watched her touch it lovingly. Her words about my work had an impact, and I continued to roll the idea around in my mind of doing something more with it.
