Page 4 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Lumberjack

This is either the worst moment of my life or the best story I'll ever tell at a dinner party

I haven't decided

A sound comes out of me. Rough, unfamiliar, scraping up from somewhere under my ribs. It takes me a second to identify it.

I'm laughing.

I lean both hands on the workbench, head down, and the sound keeps coming. Maple's on her feet now, ears forward, tail doing something that's not quite a wag but is closer than she's managed in months. She looks at me like she's trying to remember what this noise is.

That makes two of us.

Unknown Number:

Okay I really am going to stop now

I have to go teach 22 five year olds about the letter Q

Which is a RIDICULOUS letter by the way

It can't even function without U

Q is the neediest letter in the alphabet

Kind of like me before coffee

Me:

Go teach your kids about the needy letter.

Unknown Number:

Going. Deleting your number. Pretending this never happened.

Me:

You're not going to delete my number.

Unknown Number:

...

No I'm probably not

Have a good Tuesday, Wrong Number Guy.

Me:

Have a good Tuesday, Kindergarten Teacher.

The screen goes quiet. I stand in my shop with the oak drying on the rack, the saw waiting, the morning getting warmer through the windows. Maple settles back onto her spot by the door. The shop smells like fresh cut wood and machine oil, the same way it's smelled every morning since I came back to work six months after Cora's funeral because the alternative was sitting in our house staring at the closet full of her clothes I still haven't moved.

Two years. That's how long it's been since I laughed like that. Since something surprised me in a way that didn't involve grief or guilt or Patty Cole showing up unannounced with a casserole dish she expected back within the week.

A kindergarten teacher in Reno texted me about underwear, and I laughed.

I save her number in my phone. Don't assign a name. Just save it.

Then I put my gloves back on, pull the ear protection into place, and feed the next board through the saw. The blade screams. The oak splits clean. Maple watches from her spot by the door.