Chapter 6: Father Knows Best
The sawdust hung in the air, golden and still, in the slants of morning light cutting through the grimy workshop window. Stone worked a piece of 120-grit sandpaper over the curved arm of the rocking chair, the repetitive motion grounding her. Back and forth. Back and forth. The friction was a welcome monotony.
Her father, Frank, hummed along to classic rock from a dust-caked radio. He was turning a replacement spindle on the lathe, his big, calloused hands steady and sure. The smell of pine resin and machine oil was familiar, a scent from her childhood that usually meant safety.
“Pass me that square, would ya, kiddo?” Frank asked, not looking up.
Stone set down her sandpaper, wiped her hands on her jeans, and fetched the metal L-square from the cluttered bench. She handed it to him. Their fingers brushed. His were warm, rough.
“Thanks.” He checked the angle of the spindle, gave a satisfied grunt. “Coming along. This was your great-grandmother’s, you know. Saw me through my colic, my dad through his mumps. Funny, the things that last.”
Stone nodded, picking up her sandpaper again. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the kind they’d always shared—practical, focused on the task. It let her mind drift to the taste still haunting her mouth, to the ache in her jaw, to the impossible weight of the secret she now carried in broad daylight.
Frank turned off the lathe. The sudden silence felt heavier.
He wiped his hands on a rag, then leaned against the workbench, watching her sand. The rhythmic scraping seemed louder now.
“So,” he said, the word a casual bullet. “You and Mira.”
The sandpaper slipped. Stone’s fingernail gouged the soft wood. She stared at the pale scratch, her heart performing a violent, nauseating slam against her ribs. The blood drained from her face, leaving her cold and tingling. She couldn’t look up.
Frank chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “Relax, kiddo. I know.” He tossed the rag aside. “I’ve always known about her… special situation. From the start. Hell, it’s part of the package.”
Stone forced her head up. Her father’s face was calm, weathered, like the oak he was working with. There was no anger. No disgust. Just a weary, knowing acceptance that felt more terrifying than rage.
“I know what she needs,” Frank continued, crossing his arms. “What she wants. Always have. And I’m a simple man. I want her happy. Happy wife, happy life, right?” He gave a small shrug, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m not angry. If anything… I’m glad it’s you.”
Stone’s breath caught. “Glad?”
“You’re family,” he said, as if it were the most obvious logic in the world. “You’re smart. You’re careful. I trust you.” He paused, letting the word ‘trust’ hang in the sawdust-filled air like a poisonous vapor. “To take care of her. To keep her… occupied. When I can’t.”
The world didn’t just tilt. It fragmented. Every assumption Stone had ever held about her father, about marriage, about the quiet, boring safety of this house, splintered like cheap plywood. He wasn’t a cuckold. He was a manager. A facilitator. And he’d just appointed her to a position she hadn’t applied for.
Her face burned, a fierce blush that traveled down her neck. She was naked under his gaze, more exposed than she’d been on her knees in the dark.
Frank pushed off the bench and walked over. He placed a heavy, warm hand on her shoulder. The grip was firm, paternal, utterly normal. It made her skin crawl.
“Just be careful, okay?” he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble. “She’s got appetites. Strong ones. Don’t let her wear you out.” He squeezed her shoulder once, then released her. As he turned back to his lathe, he tossed the final, gutting remark over his shoulder, his tone almost jovial.
“And for God’s sake, use the lock on the laundry room door. The dryer’s loud, but it ain’t that loud.”
He winked.
Then he flipped the switch, and the lathe whirred back to life, its high-pitched whine filling the space where Stone’s understanding of her life had once been.
She stood frozen, the sandpaper a dead weight in her hand. The scent of jasmine and sex seemed to have seeped into the very sawdust, into the oil-stained concrete floor. Her father’s humming resumed, tuneless and steady.
She looked down at the chair arm. The scratch from her nail was deep, a raw, personal flaw in the antique wood. She began sanding it again, harder now, trying to erase it. But some marks, she understood with a chilling finality, were permanent. The workshop, once a sanctuary, was now just another room where the rules had been written in a language she was only just learning to speak.
The rocking chair, she thought blankly, would rock on. It would hold whatever future bodies came to sit in it. The wood didn’t care about the secrets it witnessed. It just endured.
She sanded until her fingers were numb, the ghost of her father’s wink burning behind her eyes brighter than the sun on the dust.