Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-566
I always loved watching her when we went to a hardware store at the beginning of a project. I knew the basics, but she was an expert. She could look at shelf after shelf of whoozits and whatsits and know exactly what we were going to need.
I was her assistant. I’d fetch whatever she needed, and sometimes I’d even get it right the first time.
Her eyes lit up when we’d get to the lumberyard. There was something about the smell, I think. It wasn’t the same as her smell at the end of the day – a combination of sawdust and sweat that never failed to excite me. It was more the smell of potential, of *possibility*. These boards and sheets of plywood could be anything in the right hands.
I’d grab a two by four for her inspection. “That one has too many knots,” she’d tell me, or “that one may be true,” or “stop making ‘wood’ jokes.” Well, that last one was more of a look than words.
She was the foreperson now more than the lead carpenter, guiding the kids through their own projects. I knew that someday, we wouldn’t be around, but she’d still be with them every time they went to the hardware store. “That one may be true,” they’d hear in their heads. And they would know, just like I did, that she wasn’t always talking about lumber.
Project Gemini 