I confess now I have begun to henna my red hair gone dull in parts and penny bright in others. And I always tried to subdue its wildness. But when the hull of our marriage busted rock and began to leak, we both thought it was a good idea to renovate the kitchen, together, by ourselves. We closed up the hall to the back rooms to create more privacy and took down a load- bearing wall in hoped of opening the “flow.” My husband looked like Christ hauling the salvaged timbers from a warehouse deep in the Piney woods one by one up the front stoop, laying them in our suburban living room, posing as a Brooklyn loft. We framed the new wide space: one as header, two as column braces, then sat on the floor cross-legged looking at our work in progress, the way the wood had aged, the colors and striations, notches and hammered pegs. We felt our fifties ranch had a new story now, something with weight, and we held hands a little while before getting up, heading to the shower, falling back into our routine.
Leave a Reply