He scanned the area but saw no definite signs, no billowing black clouds or even thin traces. It’s a woodstove. Everyone has a woodstove. They’ll be used all winter. Get used to it. His senses, on high alert, finally listened to his logic, and backed off.
Prying his hand from the frame, he wiped sweat from his brow.
“You okay up there?” His dad was moving the ladder under him.
“I’m okay.”
“Liar. Get down here before you fall.”
“I won’t fall.” He picked up the hammer and tried placing a nail. “I was just taking a break.” His fingers shook, and he hesitated.
His dad took off his ball cap and rubbed his head. “Mark, please come down.”
If his dad had said it any other way, Mark would have argued. But when Cal Rivers spoke with patience and fatigue in his voice, Mark had to obey.
Once on the ground, he sat on a ladder rung and watched the concrete. “I’m fine, Dad. I just . . . smelled smoke.” He hated to admit that. It was the tail end of autumn. People burned their rubbish piles and woodstoves and backyard firepits.
“Ah, son.” Mark felt his dad’s hand heavy on his shoulder, keeping him from blowing away like a leaf.
“Caught me off guard.” He shrugged. “I spent most of last winter inside.” He’d been in and out of hospitals and clinics with skin grafts, reconstruction, and recovery.
Dad nodded. “Do you need to call the doc?”
“No.” He knew what his therapist would say. Did you do your exercises? Yes. Did you place the emotions in their proper box? Eventually. What do you need to change to make it better?
“I’m going to smell smoke out here. Next time I’ll be able to sort it out faster.”
His dad watched him a moment, then seemed to accept his answer. He looked up at the framework. “Okay. Good plan. Let’s stop for today.”
“We don’t have to stop just because I lost it up there for a minute.”
“We’re stopping because I’m starving, and it’s your turn to make dinner. We gotta eat before Ivy’s play.” He started to walk toward the house. His dad always walked back to the house, even if they’d driven the truck there.
“But we’ve got a lot to do before the trusses come on Monday.”
His dad turned, walking backward and pulling off his work gloves. “Then I guess we get up extra early in the morning.” He grinned. “Your favorite. Meet you at the house.”
Mark sighed and pulled off his gloves. When they’d had Maize and a couple other cows, Mark and Steph had to milk morning and night. His dad’s definition of “extra early” was ungodly. They’d be working by the light of construction lamps before the neighbor’s rooster crowed.
All because he couldn’t keep it together when he smelled a little smoke.
He put away the tools and got the site ready for morning, then climbed into his truck and drove up to the house, beating his dad by a couple of minutes.
Ham sandwiches and canned soup made up dinner. The men ate steadily without many words. When they finished, his dad pulled out a ledger while Mark cleaned up the dishes.
“What’re you looking at?” he asked.
“The last of what we lost in the outbuilding. Just going over it for the insurance company so they can wrap this up.”
Dad had that same masked look on his face he always got when they discussed the loss from the fire. Half the stuff in the storage building had been equipment, tools, and machinery, easily replaced by insurance. But the other half had been memories. Boxes of baby things, stuff from Stephanie’s wedding, his parents’ old photos and keepsakes, holiday decorations, and, of course, nearly all of Mom’s original oil paintings. Some had stayed in the house, thank goodness, but the rest had been carefully stored, waiting to be treasured by future kids and grandkids. Steph was still sick that she hadn’t picked up the paintings when she and Brian got their house. It had been on her to-do list. Now they were gone.
And then there was the nativity.
Dad suddenly shut the ledger and rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to lie down for a minute before we leave.” He pushed back from the table and left without another word, walking with an age he rarely showed.
Mark pulled the ledger over and opened it up. There in his dad’s neat, blocky handwriting were lists of items and their estimated values. Some had check marks next to them, some didn’t. The list was made up of orchard equipment and machinery. Then irrigation stuff. He turned the page. More business items already compensated for.
His dad had dealt with all this without him.
Then his finger stopped on the opposite page.
Leah’s Paintings:
Sunflowers
Barn
Old Oak
Apple Blossoms
Mt. Stuart
The list went on. He’d catalogued all of her paintings by name. Mark could picture many of them, but his dad had known them all.
Mark ran his finger farther down the page and stopped again.
Leah’s Nativity:
Mary
Joseph
Baby Jesus in Manger
Star
Shepherd with 2 Sheep
Mark noticed the monetary value column on the page was empty. How did you put a price on something priceless? The insurance company probably had some method to put a base value to a painting, but Mark knew his dad. The column was blank because base value didn’t matter when it came to the nativity. All that mattered was that it was gone.
Last Christmas was a blur for Mark. Even now all he remembered were lights and some music. Cards that Steph or his dad had read to him. Pictures Ivy drew. He hadn’t considered it would have been the first Christmas without the
