An hour left before locking up shop, the chime on the front door rang.

Brushing my sawdust-covered hands on my Levi’s, I walked through the narrow hallway to the front of the shop.

“Hey, Mal, burning the midnight oil?”

The cheer in my friend Philip’s voice made me smile. “It’s not even seven, Phil. I’d hardly call that the midnight oil.”

He waved his hand in the air and leaned against the front counter, grin covering his face. “I closed two hours ago.”

Phil and his wife, Nancy, owned the bakery next door. They’d opened up shop two years ago and had instantly become the new talk of the town because of their French chocolate bread. Pain au chocolat, it was called, though I couldn’t pronounce it properly to save my life.

Both Phil and his wife were around my age and had been married for the past twenty-some years. They joked around and pestered each other the way people who’d been married most of their lives did. I found it endearing. But it also reminded me of how lonely I was.

“Why don’t you close up early? You look exhausted.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face and forced a smile. “That obvious?”

His eyebrows raised a fraction closer to his dark hairline. “How’s business?”

I shrugged. “Not great. Slowly declining each year.”

“You don’t put out as much as you used to,” he said gently.

It was true. And what I did put out didn’t have the same feel to it. I’d lost something in my craft along the way but couldn’t place what it was. My drive? My passion? My purpose? Something.

There were too many late nights at home alone in my workshop, where all I could manage to do was stare at the old curled shavings of wood leftover from previous projects.

“Nancy and I would love to have you over for dinner again sometime soon,” Phil pressed. “You can even bring a date.”

I laughed without heart. “Yeah? And where am I going to find one of those?”

“What about that woman you were seeing a while back?”

Trying my best to ignore the question, I looked around the small storefront that had been my business for the past decade of my life. The sun was setting through the two large windows in the front of the store. I always kept the glass perfectly clean and polished, except for the logo printed on the window which read: Oak & Varnish: Custom Wood Furniture.

“I take it that didn’t last too long? Shame,” Phil pressed. “Well, date or not, we’d love to have you over.”

“Thanks,” I said, meaning it. I would accept Phil and Nancy on their offer. I wasn’t resolved to being lonely—it just seemed to be the way the cards had fallen.

“Well, I’ll be outta your hair.” Phil slapped his hand against the wood top of my counter and smiled. “I’ll be by tomorrow with a fresh loaf of bread with your name on it if you promise to come over this weekend to watch the game.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

With a salute, Phil left, the doorbell singing behind him.

I took note of how quiet the shop was. Usually, music played over the speakers, but that must’ve stopped hours ago without me noticing. That was happening more and more, I found. I barely noticed the silence anymore. Probably just getting used to it. That was a scary thought.

Glancing around at the few pieces of furniture I had around the edges of the shop, I felt the tightness in my chest squeeze a little harder. I had to figure out what was wrong with me. My work was suffering. I knew it; my customers knew it. And I wouldn’t dream of closing down the shop if things got too bad. The thought itself sent a shiver of fear down my spine. I had no idea what I’d do with myself all day if I ever had to close for good.

Phil was right. I should leave early. I wouldn’t have any more customers that day, and if I did happen to catch a few passersby, they wouldn’t buy anything. They’d come in, see the flaws in my work, notice the lack of heart in each piece, and leave.

With a heavy sigh, I walked around the counter, flipped the Closed sign to face outward, and locked the bolts on the front door. When I walked into the back, I made sure to flick off all the lights before grabbing my workbag off one of the small hooks in the back room. Before exiting, I punched in the alarm code, then walked over to my truck and climbed in. I sat behind the wheel in silence for… I don’t know how long. Minutes. Hours. Millennia.

When I started the engine and pulled out of the parking stall, I knew there was only one place I’d go. Not even fifteen minutes later, I stood in front of my wife’s headstone.

The grass had grown tall along the sides. Greener than the year before, but we’d had a lot of snow this past winter. It had taken longer than usual to melt, but everyone around town tried to keep in good spirits about it, always saying how we needed it.

Spring.

It used to be our favorite time of year. It used to be my favorite time of year. Now, it was my most hated. I didn’t want to be reminded of things fresh and new. I didn’t want to be reminded of new beginnings or anything youthful.

I crouched down in front of the gravestone, uncaring of the wetness of the grass pressing against the knees of my denim jeans. In the distance, behind the mountains, the sky glowed peach and saffron. The colors were so bright against the still-white tops of the tallest mountains. Even in the spring and summer, the tops of the massive mountains remained covered in snow. That brought a small smile to my face. Seemed almost symbolic.

Feeling the tightness in my chest once more, I reached out and ran my fingers against the smooth, polished stone.

“Oh, Honey. I miss you.”

But to my absolute horror, and not for the first time, it wasn’t Sophia’s face that came into my mind. It wasn’t her laugh I still heard ringing in my ears. It wasn’t the loss of her still tugging at my heart.

It was someone else’s ghost.

---

I left the graveyard in a mood. Hostility and anguish seized my joints, making it hard to focus on anything as I drove home faster than usual.

There had to be something fundamentally wrong with me. People saying that time healed all wounds was complete and utter bullshit. As time waned past me, I remained in stasis, stuck in some strange, deteriorating mental and emotional state. Each month that passed by, I slept less, ate less, worked out less. The small things I once found solace in no longer held even the faintest value in my eyes. My work was suffering, I couldn’t focus, and now, a place I’d once visited to remember my wife had betrayed me. Or maybe it was me who was betraying her.

I didn’t know anymore. There weren’t rules or guidebooks on how to deal with something like this. I wasn’t sure I’d even have the energy to read them if there were.

After arriving home and dropping my duffle bag on the floor in the front foyer, I was greeted by the absolute remarkable magnitude of nothing. Absolutely nothing. The quiet. The lack of sound, the lack of life. The lack of anything at all.

It was too much. It was too much nothing.

Immediately, I walked through the hallway, past the kitchen and living room, and out onto the patio. From there, I trudged down the soil pathway to my workshop. Like the coward I was, I faced the closed door of my workshop, unable to open it.

When was the last time I’d been inside?

Last week? The week before?

It seemed to get harder and harder to go inside. It was the smell of the wood, the sawdust, the varnishes. In the daytime, the light shone through the windows in just the wrong way. And at night—at night, the soft chirping of the crickets outside weighed on my mind, and the warmth of the heater chilled me to the core.

“Pull yourself together, Mallory,” I mumbled.

When I turned the handle and pushed the door open, it was the smell that first hit me hardest. And that was one of the unfairest things of all. I’d known that smell since I was a child, but now it made my stomach roil.

I flicked on the lights and forced myself into the center of the workshop. It had never been tidy or organized exactly, but now it looked close to chaos, covered in dust and dirt, with water stains on the ceiling and marks on the walls. The roof had needed replacing the year before last, but I hadn’t had the heart to do it. I hadn’t had the heart to do much.

And of course, just that word—heart—made me think of him.

Unable to help myself, my eyes found the chair in the corner of the room I hadn’t been able to move or even touch in years. An old blanket still lay on top of it, and on its surface was dust from years passed.

All around it were piles of wood, half-created furniture, empty bottles of polish and alcohol, and tools I’d been frustrated with and had thrown.

I’d covered every inch of my workshop with clutter.

Every single inch but that fucking chair.

I laughed, feeling my chest seize.

What did I think would happen? That one day I’d come out here and he’d be sitting there again? Reading? Sleeping? Would it matter if he were? Would I send him away again?

If I were a smart man, I’d burn the chair. I’d burn the blanket and all the puzzles and every single record in my house.

But I think I’d proven to every person I’d ever loved that I wasn’t smart or strong. I was weak. And because I was weak, I immediately turned on a heel, switched off the lights, and locked the door of the workshop behind me.

I walked along the path to the back deck, took the stairs two at a time, and sat in the patio chair in front of the portable fireplace. As I stared at the cutouts of deer in its metal exterior, I remembered a conversation I’d had with a young man years ago.

I’d been sad for him, but more than that, I’d felt some kind of spark, something close to companionship or understanding. It was that feeling that human beings rarely had when they met another person and their souls spoke to one another.

But I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to think about him.

So I tilted my head back, leaning it against the chair. As I stared up at the ocean of bright stars, I thought of nothing at all.