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“That’s a really big truck,” George said.
“It is, but he needs it to pull heavy horse trailers that hold eight or so horses at the same time. That’s a lot of weight. Plus, the fields here get muddy in the spring and fall, and he needs to bring out hay and water.”
“So what are we doing here, exactly?” George asked as they got out of the truck.
“I wanted to show you something. I have a hobby that needs a big space to work in, and obviously, that’s impossible in my apartment, so Rob lets me use one of his barns.”
He stalked over to the barn, George on his heels, then pushed open the heavy doors. As soon as they stepped inside, George gasped, hurrying over to the closest piece, a massive black bear, standing on his hind legs. He ran his hands over the wood. “These are… Wow! They’re amazing.”
He walked deeper into the barn, stopping at one of a deer, its head high and alert as if it had smelled humans. “They’re so detailed. Did you make these?”
Jack nodded, happiness bubbling in his belly at George’s admiration. “It started as a joke on the job. I handle chainsaws for a living, so at the end of the day, when I got bored, I started making things from discarded tree trunks. One thing led to another, and then I did a sort of internship with a guy who does this full time, and I got even better.”
“You make these with a chainsaw?”
“Most of it. I do the detailed work with smaller tools, but I cut the big shapes with a chainsaw.”
“That’s gotta be the coolest thing ever to watch.”
Jack smiled. “I’ve done some county fairs in the area when I happened to be off. It always draws a lot of people. And it helps me sell my pieces. Usually, one fair’s enough to make me sell out my stock and get a few more orders.”
“People put them in their garden or something?”
“They can. I can treat them with a finish that makes them more weather resistant. But they also put them on their porch by the door or even inside. I have one couple who have bought eight pieces so far, and they’ve created a whole garden with wood sculptures. It’s beautiful. They requested a custom piece, a deer drinking from a pool or lake, and once finished, they placed it right by a little pond they had made. It looks amazing.”
George meandered around the barn, touching all pieces almost affectionately, studying them up close. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Jack chuckled. “Never been to a county fair, then?”
George made his way back toward him. “Maybe once or twice when I was small, but I don’t remember seeing something like this. My parents weren’t big on going places. My mom has a lot of anxiety issues, and she’s borderline agoraphobic.”
He stated it as calmly as if he’d recited the weather report, and yet Jack picked up on the pain in that simple statement. “That must’ve been hard for you as a kid.”
“Yes and no. She was incredibly hospitable, so my friends were always welcome, and she’d go out of her way to make them feel at home. Everyone loved coming to my house because she’d bake cookies and make pizza and let us do what we wanted. She just wasn’t good at leaving the house. In the beginning, my dad would try to make her, but over time, he stopped, since it became clear she was much happier at home.”
Jack tugged gently on his hand, and when George gave in, he pulled him close and wrapped his arms around him. “That’s a hard thing to watch, I bet.”
“It is. There’s so much to see in the world, you know? I want that for her, but it’s never gonna happen.”
“Was she always like that?”
“No. It started when I was three. I’d escaped from the garden ‘cause the mailman had left the gate open, and curious as I was, I’d immediately taken off, wanting to see the neighborhood. It took hours for the cops to find me, and that changed something in her. She became terrified of the dangers out there, and it never went away.”
Jack’s heart had grown soft for George as he told his story. “Do you remember that day?”
George shook his head. “No. I know because my parents told me, but I don’t remember anything. Just like I can’t recall a time when my mom wasn’t afraid to leave the house. It was my normal, and for a long time, I didn’t know any better. But she never blamed me or tried to hold me back from exploring.”
Jack kissed the top of George’s head and let go of him. “She sounds like an amazing woman.”
“She is. My dad’s pretty cool too. He’s a software engineer, so I clearly take after him in terms of my interests.”
“How did they react when you came out?”
George laughed. “I was so obviously gay, even as a kid, that they figured it out long before I did. By the time I came out, they were more impatient than anything else. They wanted to get it out in the open and move on.”
“It always makes me happy to hear stories about supportive parents. They seem so rare.”
George cocked his head. “What about your parents? Would they be supportive if you came out?”
