“See that knot in the pine board?” he asked her last week. “Yeah.” “It’s not a flaw. It’s where a branch used to be. The tree grew around its own loss. That’s strength.”
She doesn’t cry. She sets the bird on the table, next to the lantern. She picks up her pencil. Tomorrow, she will measure twice. She will cut once. She will build a boat.
“I wasn’t going to, Grandpa.”
“No,” she says. “I think I’m being saved.”