It’s been about a year since all of that happened.
The cabin is fixed now. I put a new metal roof on it in the spring. Redid all the plumbing. Tore out the rotten porch boards and rebuilt the whole thing with white oak. I turned the back bedroom into a real workshop with good lighting and ventilation and a dust collector that hums in the corner like an old refrigerator.
Harland comes by most Thursdays. He sits on a stool by the window with his coffee, watching me work, and tells me stories about Grandpa I never heard before. Last month he told me Grandpa used to keep my first little bird in his shirt pocket when he went to church. I had to go outside for a minute after that one.
I work there almost every day now. The waitlist for a custom set is six months long. I did two more TV features after the public television show. And this fall, a national retailer is carrying a limited collection of my work in stores across the country. The actor’s chess set shipped in a crate I built myself, and he sent me a handwritten thank-you note that I keep in Grandpa’s old lockbox.
Elise and I moved in together, into her place down the road from the cabin, because it turns out that loving a large-animal vet means you also get three rescue dogs and a gray cat named Hank who stares down at you from every high shelf in the house like a judge.
Last month, I proposed to her on the cabin porch at sunset. I’d carved the ring box myself out of a piece of walnut left over from the board of my father’s chess set.
She said yes before I even finished asking the question.
And that chess set, the one I pulled out of the recycling bin with the garbage truck two blocks away, sits on a little table by the cabin window. The brass plate still says, “To Dad. 60 years of building things that last.”
I’ve had people offer me a lot of money for it. I’ll never sell it. It isn’t there to remind me what my father did. It’s there to remind me what I’m worth.
As for my family, it’s complicated. It probably always will be.
Mom and I talk now and then. She came out to the cabin in the fall with a casserole, and she sat on the porch and said, “I’m sorry I called Mr. Moss, Michael. I told myself I was keeping the peace. I was really just keeping it quiet.” That was the most honest thing she’d ever said to me. We’re working on it.
Trent and I grab a beer every couple of months. He still doesn’t totally get it. But last time, he asked me to teach his son how to carve. That’s a start.
And my dad?
We’re not close. We might never be. But about two months ago, I heard that old Ford pull up the gravel drive to the cabin.
He didn’t say much. He walked around the porch and ran his hand along the new railing. He looked at the roof. He came inside and stood in the workshop and watched me carve for a long time without a single word.
Then, just before he left, he stopped next to the little table by the window. He looked down at the chess set. He picked up the king, the one with Grandpa’s face, and he held it for a long moment. This time, he turned it over slowly, like he was really looking at it.
He set it back down very carefully, right on its square.
Then he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. Hard.
That’s about as eloquent as Gerald gets.
I don’t need his approval anymore. I spent 32 years carving things for a man who couldn’t see them.
Now I carve for me. For Elise. For people who love the work. And for a grandfather who once looked at a quiet 12-year-old boy holding a block of basswood and said, “Show me what you see in there.”
And every single day, I do.
Specialty: Emotional Turning Points
Rachel Monroe writes character-driven stories about betrayal, second chances, and unexpected resilience. Her work highlights the emotional side of family conflict — the silences, the misunderstandings, and the moments when someone quietly decides they’ve had enough.