“That’s okay.”
“We want another for my mother.”
Elias picked up a smaller cherry box.
“This one has a deeper lining.”
“Good for letters.”
“Jewelry.”
“Photographs.”
The young man inspected the interior.
“These joints are tight.”
Elias nodded.
“I finish the inside as carefully as the outside.”
“Why?”
“If someone takes it home, they should get the whole job.”
The stranger in the brown jacket smiled.
Then looked at Marla.
“Somebody here judged this work far too quickly.”
The young woman looked between them.
“What happened?”
Elias shook his head.
“Nothing.”
Marla said:
“He’s being dramatic.”
The stranger answered:
“She told him nobody would want them.”
The young woman stared at Marla.
“Seriously?”
Elias sighed.
“She said they were taking space.”
He looked down.
“So I was about to pack them.”
The young woman hugged the box closer.
“Then don't.”
She looked at the table.
“I think your day is about to change.”
Elias almost laughed.
It sounded impossible.
Then another customer arrived.
An older woman in a green sweater.
“This is beautiful.”
She picked up the walnut chest.
“How much?”
Elias checked the small tag.
“Sixty-five.”
Marla made a sound.
The woman looked at her.
“Problem?”
Marla smiled tightly.
“No.”
The woman turned back to Elias.
“I’ll take it.”
Elias stared.
“Ma’am?”
“The walnut one.”
“And maybe another before I leave.”
He reached for a paper bag.
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
She opened the lid again.
“The flowers inside?”
Elias looked.
A small painted stem curved along the cedar lining.
“That pattern was one my wife made a long time ago.”
The woman paused.
“Then I’m glad it found its way to me.”
Elias wrapped the box.
His hands shook slightly.
He hoped nobody noticed.
They did.
The man in the brown jacket noticed.
He said nothing.
Within twenty minutes, six people stood around the table.
Then nine.
The book seller across the aisle stopped pretending not to watch.
People touched the boxes carefully.
Opened lids.
Examined hinges.
Asked about wood.
Asked how long each took.
Asked whether Elias accepted custom orders.
He had not prepared an answer for that.
A man holding a small flower box asked:
“Did you really make every one of these?”
“Every one I could.”
Elias smiled.
“Slower now, maybe.”
“But I still don't rush the work.”
“You can tell.”
The stranger in the brown jacket finally asked:
“Elias, was your wife the painter?”
Elias looked at him.
“Ruth.”
He glanced down at the boxes.
“She painted the first flowers.”
“I knew how to work wood.”
“She knew how to make people want to look twice.”
The crowd quieted.
Elias continued, not because he wanted to tell the story.
Because somehow it felt all right.
“We met in 1972.”
“Community college night class.”
“I was studying drafting.”
“Ruth was taking accounting.”
The young woman buying the first-home box smiled.
“How did you meet?”
“She borrowed my pencil.”
“Never gave it back.”
A few people laughed.
Elias smiled.
“I asked for it the next week.”
“She said if I cared that much, I could buy another pencil.”