original?”
He stood.
“Come with me.”
Mom immediately rose.
“Manuel.”
“It’s time.”
She looked from him to me, then sighed.
“All right. But quietly.”
We left the storage room through the side door and crossed the yard.
Dad did not head toward the house.
He walked toward his old workshop.
I had grown up in that workshop.
When I was a child, it smelled of cedar shavings, varnish, coffee, and summer heat. Dad had built dining tables there, cabinets, bookshelves, church pews, rocking chairs, and once an enormous walnut desk
