“I wanna be a lumberjack,” Noah says, tugging on my arm.

Jack throws an axe, and it slams into the bullseye on the tree.

Noah emulates the throwing motion.

“I thought you wanted to be a penguin,” Jane says.

“Lumberjack.”

“Sledder?” I ask. “Maybe a sledder with a bunch of cute dogs in--”

“No!” Noah says, crossing his arms.

“Looks like Jack won another event,” Jane says. “He’s going to the grand finals.”

I sigh. I’m happy for him, but I’m incredibly stressed out.

Jane grabs my arm and leans close into my ear. “You gotta tell me what’s going on, Liz.”

I whisper back to her, impatience leaking into my voice, “I’ll tell you both, okay? After this tournament is over, we’ll go out to eat, and I’ll tell you both--together--what happened. Okay?”

“Fine,” Jane says. “You think you’d tell your own sister first, though.”

I roll my eyes.

“What is hard hitting?” Jane asks.

“It’s when they hit stuff really hard,” I say sarcastically.

“Come on,” Jane says, kicking my foot.

I look over to Jane and Noah, and I try to explain it so Noah can understand, too.

“This is the last big event today,” I say. “Whoever wins this, is the big winner. But even getting second place is very, very good.”

I’m trying to make sure Noah won’t be disappointed if his father doesn’t win. I honestly don’t even know how much Noah sees Jack as “his father.” He’s never had a father, how can he really know at this point what it means for Jack to be his father? Jack will have to stick around, spend time with him, and get to know him. But Noah is pretty into this lumberjack thing, and he seems to be cheering for Jack--the only lumberjack Noah has spoken to so far.

“See those two big logs?” I say, pointing down into the arena.

“They gotta race to chop them down?” Jane asks.

“No,” I say. “There’s no time limit on this. Whoever can cut through the log in the fewest swings wins.” I look at Noah. “They have to hit the log as hard as they can, the harder they swing, the fewer swings they need to cut it.”

“What if they tie?” Jane asks.

“Then whoever was fastest wins.”

“You said it wasn’t a race,” Jane says. “You said time didn’t--”

“Okay,” I throw my hands up in the air. “Time matters if there is a tie, then.”

“You could have just said that when I first asked,” Jane says.

I grind my teeth together. She’s annoyed at me for not telling her about Jack. She’s asked me dozens--hundreds--of times over the last few years, but I’ve never told her. I’ve been too damn ashamed of what I did to him to tell her.

I also didn’t want her to know that Aldus is Jack’s half-uncle. I never even wanted to mention that name to Jane again, but now it seems I’ll have to. I’m going to have to tell both Jack and Jane what I did. Maybe they can both forgive me--but even if they can’t--at this point, I’ll just be happy to have it all off my chest.

The announcer starts shouting into the microphone, announcing that Jack the Lumberjack and Guy Livingstone will be competing for the grand prize: $100,000. Second place will get only $25,000.

That’s a big difference, I realize. Twenty-five thousand dollars is nothing to scoff at, but $100,000 would be enough that Jack could afford to stay comfortably in Anchorage for a good amount of time.

I suddenly feel extremely invested in the final event. I want Jack to win, for Noah. For me.

“You think he can win?” Jane asks. “That Guy guy--” she snickers. “Guy looks jacked.”

“You don’t think Jack looks jacked?” I ask, scoffing.

“I mean,” Jane says, “Jack looks very athletic, like an all-around athlete and stuff, but Guy’s arms are huge.”

I look at Guy. He’s got a big gut compared to Jack’s cut six-pack, but his arms are huge. He looks like one of those “strongmen” who tows a semi-truck hooked up to a rope. So strong that they almost look fat. A guy that big going up against Jack on the hard hitting event. Shit.

“How did that fat-ass, big-arm freak get through log rolling and speed climbing?” I ask, feeling pissed off.

“I guess his arms were big enough to compensate for his gut,” Jane says.

“It was a rhetorical question,” I snap back.

Jack and Guy square off. They stare each other down, and finally they shake hands. Jack is taller than Guy by a few inches, and even though Guy’s arms are freakishly large, Jack by no means looks small standing across from him.

“As the reigning champion,” the announcer says, “Guy Livingstone will take the first swing.”

He grabs his axe and hefts it up above his head, everyone around us cheers and claps, but the three of us stay quiet.

Guy saunters up to the log, holds his axe out to choose his mark, and then his big arms cock it back. There’s a pause, and the crowd goes silent. Guy swings the heavy axe as if it was light as a plastic baseball bat. It slams deep into the wood, and splinters of wood go flying high up into the air.

The announcer goes crazy, and the crowd erupts in cheers.

“Shit,” I whisper under my breath, quiet enough that Noah can’t hear me.

“Is my dad gonna win?” Noah asks after the noise dies down.

I had to tell Noah that Jack was his Dad after they met. He’s never had a Dad, so the concept is new to him. He was already intrigued by Jack, but now he’s captivated.

“He hasn’t swung yet,” I say. “But yeah, maybe he’s going to win.”

“Jack the Lumberjack will now take his first swing!” the announcer says, still out of breath from shouting so much. “It will be hard to do better than Guy’s enormous swing.”

Jack holds his axe up, and then he faces me and Noah. He points toward us and nods, grinning.

“He’s pointing at you,” I say, tapping Noah’s arm.

Noah laughs, and Jack walks up to his log. Both logs are carefully selected to be the same weight, size, and thickness. Jack will need to make every single swing count, because if each of Guy’s swings will be as big as his first, then Jack can’t risk falling behind even by an inch.

Jack cocks his axe back and swings. It bites deeply into the wood, but not quite as deep as Guy’s. There’s polite cheering and applause.

I stand up and shout, clapping as loud as I can. Jane follows behind me, and I help Noah up, who does his best to make some noise.

“We gotta keep supporting him,” I say. “If he knows we’re behind him, he can take Guy down.”

“Ouch,” the announcer says. “A very good swing, all things considered, but Jack’s going to have to do better than that if he wants to take this log down in fewer swings than Guy. Let’s see what Guy’s got lined up for his next swing. Remember that even though it’s called ‘Hard Hitting,’ that it’s as much about accuracy as it is about strength. The strongest swing in the world won’t do you any good if you miss.”

Guy takes another massive swing. More wood splinters explode into the air, and his axe sticks deep into the log. From how far away I am, I can’t quite tell, but it looks like he’s maybe a quarter of the way into the log already.

Jack’s next swing is explosive. It blows splinters everywhere, and it cuts even deeper than Guy’s second swing, but it’s not quite enough for him to catch up, as his first swing was that much further behind Guy’s.

“Interesting,” the commentator says. “Jack’s swing was just that much more accurate than Guy’s. He hit into the weakest part of the wood, right where the blade cut in on the first swing. He didn’t swing any harder, just smarter, and that translates into a deeper cut.”

“Maybe he can actually win,” Jane whispers to me.

“Of course he can win!” I snap. “I never doubted it.”

Guy’s next swing hits true. It slices almost halfway into the log.

“Perfect swing,” the announcer says. “He’ll be starting on the other side for his next swing, working into the other side--it gives a lot more leeway with how accurate you have to swing. All he has to do is meet up toward the middle from the other side, and the log will tumble into two pieces.”

Jack swings again, and he hits with such force and accuracy that his axe cuts more than halfway in.

I cheer and shout, expecting the commentator to sing his praises, but instead he says that Jack “overshot,” that he’s made it harder when he switches over to the other side.

Guy stares the log down for a long time, running at least two minutes off the timer as he sizes up the log, inspecting the outer wood. After long deliberation, he finally takes his first massive swing onto the fresh side of his log, and just like his very first swing, the cold metal seems as if it’s melting through the thick wood.

“I hate to call it before it’s over,” the commentator says, “but it looks like Guy has this. Jack’s main advantage is his accuracy, but taking his first swing on the opposite side of the log, the accuracy isn’t so important. He’s simply not going to cut as deep as Guy, and he’ll struggle to keep pace with him from there. Guy could have this log in half in just two more swings.”

Jack approaches the log, and he takes aim--not on the fresh unchopped side, but deep into his existing cut.

“That’s not how you’re supposed to do it, right?” Jane asks.

I shrug. I’m not exactly a lumberjacking expert, but I never saw anyone else cutting straight through like this.

“Unbelievable!” the commentator shouts. “He’s going to cut straight through! Look at that cut, it tapers in like a ‘V,’ there’s zero margin of error here! If he’s even a few inches off, his axe is going to miss the deep point of the ‘V’-shape, and he’ll have basically wasted an entire swing! But if he hits accurately...ah! This is unbelievable!”