I’m sitting out here in the shop again, it’s gotta be past two. The smell of sawdust is thick, always is. It’s comforting, in a way. I used to think it was just about making something useful, you know, birdhouses. For a while it was just a hobby. A good one, keeps my hands busy. But it’s not just that anymore. Not really. Someone used to ask me what I was making, used to come out here with a mug of something hot and just watch. Not anymore. Now it’s just me and the hum of the old radio. The kitchen inside… it’s quiet. TOO quiet sometimes. It used to be full of talk, full of the clatter of plates, even just the sound of someone breathing. Now it’s just a room. A room I avoid. I don’t know when it started, exactly. Just a slow drift, I guess. Like a boat coming untied from the dock, just a little bit each day until you’re way out in the middle of nowhere and can’t even see the shore. One day she just stopped asking, stopped coming out. And I… I just kept building. Kept carving. It was easier than trying to figure out what to say. What to fix. Sometimes I think about all the hours I’ve spent out here, planing wood, drilling holes, putting little roofs on things. Twelve hours a day sometimes. It’s a lot of birdhouses. Enough for a whole forest, probably. And for what? So some little bird has a place to live? Or so I don’t have to sit in that kitchen, across from someone who just looks at her hands? I don’t know what to do about it. The quiet. It’s a heavy thing. Like a stone in your chest. I wonder if she ever feels it too. The weight of it. Or if she just got used to it, like a permanent draft in the house that you learn to ignore. I keep thinking maybe tomorrow, maybe I’ll go in there and just… sit. But then morning comes, and the shop calls. And the smell of fresh-cut pine is still the easiest way to breathe.