My Last Wish novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Plane

Chad handed Teddy back to me at the diner door, and he did it with a smile.

"A gesture of goodwill," he said, to the room.

Then he leaned in so only I could hear.

"Read the speech, Cal."

That night I lay in Dane's spare room with Teddy asleep against my side and my phone dark on the quilt.

At eleven, I got up.

A light was on behind the house, a yellow square in the dark.

Dane's workshop was an old garage with a cracked concrete floor and a wood stove in the corner.

I pushed the door open with my shoulder.

It smelled of cedar and machine oil, and under it of something sweet and burnt.

Dane stood at a long workbench with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

He was running a hand plane along the edge of a board, and a long pale curl of wood lifted off it and fell.

He looked up.

"You're supposed to be asleep."

"So are you."

"I'm working."

"It's eleven o'clock at night."

"That's when I'm best."

I came in and sat on a stool.

The shop was warm.

There were tables in it, half-finished, and a rocking chair with one runner, and a child's bed frame with the posts still rough.

Against the back wall stood a tall wooden cabinet of small drawers, floor to ceiling, each one with a brass number on the front.

"What's in those?" I said.

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