Chapter 6 - The Workshop on Maple Street
Spring arrived in Rhode Island with a wild, wet greenness that smelled of loam, blooming lilacs, and fresh cedar mulch.
The old workshop behind my father’s house on Maple Street had sat abandoned for nearly eight months, its red paint peeling, its gutters choked with pine needles. But by mid-April, the sound of circular saws, pneumatic nail guns, and laughter echoed across the gravel lot once more.
I had bought the property back from the municipal land trust using a fraction of the dividend payments from the port authority. I didn't tear the old place down. Instead, I hired a local crew of retired shipwrights and carpenters who had worked alongside my father thirty years ago.
Together, we replaced the rotting roof beams, installed wide, energy-efficient skylights, and sanded the heavy maple workbenches until the smooth grain gleamed under fresh coats of linseed oil.
Above the wide double barn doors, we hung a new sign carved from local white oak:
MILLER & DAUGHTER WOODWORKING & EDUCATIONAL TRUST.
It wasn't just a shop; it was an open community center. Three afternoons a week, we hosted free woodworking, boat-building, and mechanical repair workshops for local kids from the Providence public school district—kids whose families couldn't afford expensive summer camps or specialized trade schools.
On a bright, breezy Saturday in May, the shop was filled with the sweet, rich scent of sawdust and wood glue.
Chloe stood at a low bench near the south window, wearing a miniature leather shop apron and safety goggles, carefully guiding a piece of pine through a scroll saw to cut out the hull of a toy sailboat.
Standing beside her, holding a wooden block steady with one large, calloused hand, was Logan Montgomery.
He had traded his bespoke Manhattan suits for a faded denim shirt, work boots, and jeans with sawdust clinging to the cuffs. Over the past six months, his visits from New York had shifted from “routine corporate legal check-ins” to every-other-weekend trips that seemed to stretch from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening.
“Keep your fingers two inches behind the blade guide, Chloe,” Logan instructed gently, his deep voice calm and reassuring. “Let the teeth do the cutting. Don't force the wood.”
“I know, Logan,” Chloe replied with supreme, eight-year-old confidence. “Grandpa told me wood has a grain. If you fight the grain, you get splinters. If you follow it, you get a ship.”
Logan looked up across the bench at me, his gray eyes crinkling with quiet amusement. “Did you hear that, Boss? Your apprentice is already quoting philosophy.”
I leaned against the tool cabinet, holding a thermos of hot coffee, a pencil tucked behind my ear. “She gets it from her grandfather. He never built anything that didn't have a purpose.”
Logan set down his sanding block, wiped his hands on a clean shop towel, and walked over to where I stood. He leaned against the counter beside me, the scent of cedar and clean soap radiating from his frame.
“My father called this morning,” Logan murmured, looking out the open barn doors toward the sunlit yard where several neighborhood kids were testing their wooden birdhouses.
“Oh?” I asked, tilting my head. “Is Arthur trying to buy another shipping berth?”
“No,” Logan smiled softly. “He asked when I was going to stop commuting four hours on the train every Friday night and just open a branch office in Providence.”
My breath caught slightly in my throat. I looked into his eyes, seeing the quiet, unyielding steadiness that had anchored my world on the worst night of my life.
“And what did you tell him?” I asked, my voice barely louder than the hum of the dust collector.
Logan reached out, his warm, strong fingers gently brushing a speck of sawdust from my cheek.
“I told him,” Logan whispered, “that I was just waiting for the right woman to tell me there was room for my desk in the corner.”
I looked over at Chloe, who had successfully cut her sailboat hull and was proudly holding it up toward the window light, her yellow ribbon fluttering in the spring breeze.
May you like
Then I looked back at the man who had stood between my daughter and a room full of monsters without blinking an eye.
“Logan,” I said, a slow, radiant smile breaking across my face. “We have an entire second floor above the lumber racks. You can build whatever desk you want.”
