Odyssey of the Heart

“I can’t believe you are here! How was the drive? Come in! How did this happen?”

The torrent of words flowed past her unheeded as their eyes met, two pairs of quiet blue eyes locked for an eternity. She waited… there! A small twitch on one side of his mouth, a ghost of a smile and she knew he remembered. Dropping to her knees, she opened her arms. He took a few steps forward and rested his head on her shoulder as she wrapped him in a gentle embrace and cried.

“G’amma?” His lower lip quivered as his tiny hands wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“It’s O.K. baby, Grandma is O.K. These are happy tears.” She kissed him and smiled. “Are you going to show me your little sister?

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“I have an old desk my grandfather built. It needs repair, its been painted and one drawer is stuck. I will leave it with you at two o’clock on Sunday?” Jared hung up and grinned to himself. Rule number one: never give them a chance to say no. The cost of the refinishing the desk nothing compared to what he would win by finding her first.

Jen scowled as the call ended. “Honey, I think we have a new project. That was a potential client, he’s bringing in an old painted desk that his grandfather made. I don’t know his name, I don’t know anything about the desk, and he’s bringing it Sunday.”

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She hummed to the radio as she wiped the stripper onto the drawer front. “Why do people paint stuff like this?” Applying gel with a rag, she scrubbed another layer of paint, careful not to let it get into the joints or sit too long on the surface, preserving the veneer work. The desk was beautiful, old growth mahogany with ebony inlay and original solid brass hardware. This part never got old. There was sense of redemption that soothed her restless spirit as she scrubbed and sanded away years of neglect and abuse. Each piece was a mentoring session by a skilled craftsman from a previous generation. Each told a story of quality, skill and hope for the future. To put many hours and much heart into something that will outlast you demonstrates hope for the generations to follow.

It was a good project, one what that would pay the next mortgage payment or two. The client had paid half up front to cover supplies, promised the rest on completion and the budget was generous. This time, she had avoided the gut-wrenching conversation about shop hours, shop rates and being able to get it cheaper somewhere else. Haggling and defending her price exhausted her and left her feeling like a suspect in a fraud case. “Know your worth” her mentor told her.

“The Reluctant Entrepreneur” she thought ruefully. This was not exactly the plan. The furniture studio was supposed to be their retirement project. They had planned to work for another ten years, pay off the house on the lake, the student loans, and enjoy being grandparents. A surprise blessing but one she would take any day of the week. The joy of becoming grandparents was indescribable.

“That must b e heart wrenching!”

Odd expression, slightly overused, but once you’ve felt it you know why it’s sometimes described as gut wrenching.

That slow, growing nausea that weaves its way upward, intensifying until it blooms into a pain in the center of your chest and radiates outwards in pulses…up to your throat until the lump grows and you cannot breathe…into your eyes where it burns with uncried tears… sideways into your ears that roar with unsaid words…into your arms, settling down until your fingertips tingle and go numb…down, down, until your knees lock and the bottoms of your feet are cemented to the ground preventing you from stepping forward to embrace the future or turning to chase down the recent past, to the place where this terrible moment has not yet come upon you.

“Have they left yet?

“They’re just putting the baby into his seat now”

I h el d him close to keep him warm, against the chilly April air. I fussed and gave him to his mom so he wouldn’t get sick in the cold. She tucked him into his seat and his dad strapped him safely in. A wee boy, just nine months old, dwarfed by the mountains of belongings packed around him, off on the ‘adventure’ of 36oo kilometre trek across Canada in the middle of the COVID 19 crisis.

We say our goodbyes bravely, assuring each other that there will be visits, fishing expeditions, and video chats. We say, “Drive safely,” and “Call when you get to the first stop and each one after, until you get there.” We take pictures of the momentous occasion, but they must go. It’s already later than anyone hoped, and Saskatoon is five hours away.

We all wave cheerfully, wiping our tears surreptitiously.

Then they drive away to their new lives in Ottawa. I feel my husband come to stand beside me as we watch them go and his presence comforts me.

I want to run after them, calling out, “Don’t go, please don’t go. I don’t know the young man my daughter loves. I have not told my daughter that I am proud of her. I have not felt that small squirming boy surrender to sleep in my arms enough, nor the wee girl you carry within you. I have not seen the joy light up my husband’s face enough.

“Don’t go! Please don’t go!”

But you must.

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Jared flipped back to the entry in the small, black notebook looking for clues. The notebook haunted him. Why he picked it out of the snow in the parking lot was a mystery to him. Not his style to be concerned with other people’s trash. He was the man with the Midas touch; given an idea he could turn a profit, guaranteed. He was always listening for ideas, snippets of conversations in malls and coffee shops, for the spark to light the fire of his newest venture. He lived for the intensity and excitement of launching a new business, but ideas were hard to come by when people were locked down, physically distancing, behind masks. Maybe that’s why he kept the notebook. It was an odd collection of personal journal entries, furniture designs, cutting lists, floor plans with color schemes, scheduling, estimating, potential business ventures. It was generally chronological, but many entries had notes and sketches added in later. The sheer volume of ideas generated by one person fascinated him.

March 25, 2020

Today I ran out of work at ….

There! A date and a company name…LinkedIn profile…Facebook …Instagram…

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“Honey, if we can round up few more projects like this and work longer hours, maybe we can make the trip. We can pack a cooler, switch off driving, find a campground when we need, to minimize contact. I have to see those grandbabies, the weight of missing them is wearing me out. They are growing up without us. Hopefully, we won’t have to quarantine we get there. If we can get a couple of mortgage payments ahead, we should be able to pull it off. It will be tight, but I think we can do it by the time our wee girl turns one. We will have missed her entire first year …stupid Covid.”

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Jared worked the kinks out of his neck. How many video chats could a man endure trying to pin down investors safely locked in their own offices, insulated from his persuasive energy? He needed some competition to keep his edge.

The video chat invitation to his hand-picked clients said, “Money, mystery…don’t miss out!”

“So, for a deposit, we choose ideas from this notebook and make as much money as we can until one of us finds the author. That person gets the deposits and the one with the most profit at that point gets half of everyone else’s profit. I’m in!”

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“Hi Jared? Jen here. The desk is ready. I hope I’ve done your grandfather proud.”

When was the last time he heard is grandfather referred to with respect? Certainly not the day of his funeral when his grandmother had marched into his grandfather’s shop and slapped a coat of white pint on his last project, a grand roll top desk with ebony inlay. “Old fool! Never could collect! Spent all his time and money working for people who took advantage of him. Always promising, ‘This is the last one. we will go home. I will slow down after this one.’ Loved these projects more than life itself.” Tears streaming down her face, she stormed out, and locked the door. That day he vowed never to let anyone take advantage of him.

Not when his mother saddled him with the monstrosity after his grandmother passed. “You were named after him; you should take it. Needs paint but it’s sturdy.”

A brief memory flickered…love, dust dancing in a sunbeam, the smell of wood, and someone shaking his grandfather’s hand, “They don’t make them like that anymore! Magnificent! Thank you!

“Never let something out of the shop that you’re not proud to put your name on, boy,” he said as wrote carefully in the little notebook and dropped it in the pocket of his leather apron.

For the first time in his life, Jared felt a twinge of doubt. How many money-making schemes that he had orchestrated was he proud to put his name on? Or more to the point, was he proud of this one? It was one thing to glean ideas from random strangers and snippets of conversation, but …

“Today I ran out of work …."

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The old desk gleamed, magnificent in the sun, on the deck of the truck. The mahogany panels glowed inner fire, the brass shone and every tiny drawer behind the roll top worked perfectly. There was nothing quite like the redemption of a fine piece of furniture. It paid tribute to the skills and craftsmanship of a different time and promised new chapters in its life. Jen swallowed hard and turned back toward the client.

“I think this belongs to you.” She pulled a small black notebook out of the pocket of her leather apron.

“And this, to you,” Jared said as he handed her the tattered notebook.

As they exchanged notebooks, a few faded banknotes fluttered to the floor. As Jen picked them up, Jared opened the notebook to reveal pages of project details, material costs, hours and at the end of each project carefully circled in black, the profit. The back page opened to reveal a stack of cash, meticulously accounted for under the caption; “for Jared, my beloved grandson, who makes my life rich.”

Desperate to give him time to regroup, Jen prattled on, explaining the drawer stuck because the notebook was jammed…how she researched his grandfather and his clients… how his signature was always on the bottom of the top right drawer…how valuable pieces made in Canada were because they were so rare…

When Jerad abruptly thrust the bank draft at her, Jen frowned. “A bank draft wasn’t necessary, and this is too much.”

“My colleagues and I thank you for the wealth of inspiration in these pages. This is the first installment. Our contract lawyers will be in touch. What are you going to do with it?”

“Visit our grand kids,” she whispered.

Jared stared at her incredulously. Five minutes earlier he would have scoffed,” You are holding twenty thousand dollars and all you plan to do is see the grand kids?!”

But he didn’t have the heart.