arthur lionel | d7

Arthur Wood never thought that the things he wanted out of life were asking too much. A childhood spent as a quiet boy in a loud house was enough to instill a lifelong love of solitude and silence. He could never get lost in the shuffle if there was no shuffle in the first place. His mob of siblings ensured that he never had a moment to himself, never had space of his own. He was not allowed to decide, only to compromise. He was never allowed to take or keep, only to borrow or share. His life was not his own.

When it happened — as these things do, when the temper of a patient person is tested to its breaking point — the falling out had been nasty. The middle of eleven children, no one had bothered to take seriously what they had always taken for granted, and so when Arthur announced he was leaving for good, they did not believe him. He's always been a man of his word. He's never seen them again — any of them.

He wanted nothing to do with Wood. His middle name got a promotion, and Arthur Lionel got an apprenticeship from a carpenter who was also lacking in family. The shop was quiet, even with the dust collection roaring and the planer hungrily devouring boards an 1/8th of an inch at a time, and he could finally hear himself think. He slept in a straw mattress up in the rafters. A feral cat had her kittens on the old coat he'd been using as a blanket, but it was still his.

Young and stupid and all on his own, he fell head over heels for the first woman to pay him any attention. He'd've stayed with her forever — even playing stepdad to her toddler had come more naturally than he'd thought — but some people are not meant to live quiet lives in quiet houses.

Eventually, he got some acres a ways out of town. He built himself a workshop then built himself a house, and enjoyed the peace and the solitude as much as he dreamed.

It had taken him a full year to realize that the woman from the sawmill was setting aside the stock with the most striking figures just because she liked him. It certainly wasn't because he was the best customer — still getting his start, he couldn't buy much more lumber than he had an immediate use for, and no matter how much time he spent pouring over the rare woods imported from other districts, it would be too long before he could afford even the ironwood brought in from District Ten. There would always be a stack of wavy oak or quilted beech or curly sycamore waiting in the back for him all the same. And yet it never occurred to him that there might be a reason for it until she showed Arthur a large cherry burl that she'd saved for him, then refused to sell it to him unless he invited her over to see it cut open.

After that, she found any excuse to invite herself over: Tapping the sugar maples that guarded his property and boiling the sap for syrup. Felling the ones spaced too tightly or infested with ambrosia beetles. Building him a portable chainsaw mill to process them into workable lumber and hooting with giddy glee at the reveal of spalting and birdseye figures. Clearing the dams in the river that separated his property from his neighbors, and bringing over a bucket of worms so they could fish it.

He turned her a ring from mahogany, built a canoe, and asked her to marry him in the middle of a lake the river fed into. She teased him for taking her somewhere she couldn't run away to do it, told him of course, and dove into the water in proof that it wouldn't've stopped her if she hadn't really meant it.

Arthur Lionel and Valeriya Daine were married under an arbor he built from red cedar she milled, in front of the four people they collectively considered family. There was no bouquet, but the orange tomcat that lived behind the smokehouse caught a sparrow. They exchanged rings and vows and names. It rained that afternoon, but the clouds cleared in time to sleep under the stars that night.

At forty he worried he might be too old to be a dad.

At forty-four he felt too young to be a widower.

There wasn't much time to grieve, not with the way expenses had built up, and not with a kid to look after. He sold the canoe. He sold the arbor. There was no time to tap the maples that winter. He holed up in the woodshop: paying down debts, keeping food on the table, working aches into his body to match the one in his chest. For someone who'd spent his whole life eager to be left alone, Arthur Lionel had no idea how to cope with being lonely.

At fifty-seven, when he thought he'd have to learn again, he'd catch himself wondering if the things that made him happy had been too much to want, the way he kept losing them all.

arthur daine lionel
district seven
fifty-nine