“I was thinking.”
“You were snoring.”
“Carpenters think loudly.”
Mason gave George a ceremonial hammer.
George accepted.
Three weeks later, he died in his sleep.
Peacefully.
At home.
Beside a photograph of his wife.
The loss devastated Mason.
He did not cry at the funeral.
People mistook that for composure.
I knew better.
For nine days he barely spoke.
He stopped going to the diner.
He ate the same meal every evening.
He walked six miles each morning.
On the tenth day, he came downstairs holding George’s ceremonial hammer.
“I need to go.”
“Where?”
“Construction site.”
I drove.
We didn’t talk.
At the site, workers had completed the foundation.
Mason stood staring at it for a long time.
Then he walked toward a carpenter.
“Can this go inside a wall?”
He held up the hammer.
The carpenter studied it.
“Yes.”
“Where it won’t damage anything?”
“Yes.”
“Where nobody will remove it?”
