Chapter One Hundred Seventeen: Learning Each Other

Victor woke before sunrise.

Old habits.

For twenty-eight years, mornings had begun with checking tides, repairing nets, and making sure the lighthouse lamp never failed.

Some routines stayed with a person.

Others stayed because they were comforting.

He lit the kettle and stepped outside.

The village still slept.

Only the sea was awake.

"You still make coffee too strong."

Victor smiled without turning around.

"I was wondering how long you'd pretend to be asleep."

Ronan walked onto the porch, rubbing his eyes.

"I wasn't pretending."

"You walked past the kitchen three minutes ago."

"I was thinking."

Victor handed him a steaming mug.

"You pace when you think."

Ronan accepted it with a sheepish smile.

"I do?"

"You always have."

They stood together watching the first light touch the horizon.

Neither spoke.

Not because there was nothing to say.

Because they were still learning how to say it.

---

After breakfast, Victor disappeared into the workshop behind the lighthouse.

Ronan followed a few minutes later.

The old carpenter was already surrounded by timber, chisels, and curls of fresh pine.

"You need something?"

Victor asked.

"No."

Ronan leaned against the doorway.

"I just wanted to spend time with you."

Victor's hands stopped moving.

For a brief second, emotion crossed his face before he hid it behind a smile.

"I think..."

He cleared his throat.

"...I can arrange that."

He picked up a second plane from the workbench.

"Ever made a table?"

Ronan laughed.

"I can barely assemble flat-pack furniture."

"Excellent."

Victor handed him a block of wood.

"Then today you'll learn."

---

The first hour was a disaster.

Ronan cut one leg too short.

Then measured another upside down.

Finally, he glued two pieces together backwards.

Marcus wandered past the open workshop.

He looked at the half-finished project.

"...Is it supposed to lean like that?"

Victor didn't even glance up.

"No."

Marcus nodded wisely.

"I'll come back tomorrow."

Ronan threw a wood shaving at him.

Marcus escaped laughing.

---

By lunchtime, the table still wasn't finished.

But it had four legs.

Mostly.

Victor sat on the workbench wiping sawdust from his hands.

"You know..."

He looked at the crooked piece of furniture.

"My first table was worse."

Ronan looked doubtful.

"I don't believe you."

Victor smiled.

"My father burned it."

"What?"

"He said it would make better firewood."

Ronan stared.

"Seriously?"

Victor laughed.

"No."

"He used it for thirty years."

Ronan smiled.

"He did?"

"He said every time it wobbled..."

Victor gently nudged the uneven table.

"...it reminded him someone had cared enough to make it."

For a moment, neither of them looked at the table.

They looked at each other.

---

That afternoon, Adrian found them carrying the finished table toward the village square.

"It's..."

He searched for a polite description.

"...solid."

Marcus appeared beside him.

"I think the technical term is 'optimistic.'"

One corner was slightly shorter than the others.

The surface wasn't perfectly level.

One leg leaned outward just enough to make Captain Reed raise an eyebrow.

Mrs. Henderson placed a basket of apples on top.

The table rocked once.

Then settled.

"It'll do."

She smiled.

Victor nodded.

"It will."

Ronan looked at him.

"We're really keeping it?"

"Of course."

Victor rested a hand on the tabletop.

"The village doesn't need perfect furniture."

"It needs furniture made by people who live here."

---

Later, while everyone prepared dinner, Ronan wandered back into the workshop.

Something caught his eye.

An old wooden chest sat beneath the workbench.

Unlike the others, it was locked.

He hesitated.

Then looked toward Victor.

"You don't have to ask."

Victor said quietly from behind him.

"It's yours."

Ronan knelt and lifted the lid.

Inside weren't Orion documents.

Or hidden codes.

There were toys.

A carved wolf.

A tiny sailboat.

A spinning top.

A child-sized fishing rod.

Every one unfinished.

Ronan picked up the little wolf.

"You made these."

Victor nodded.

"One every birthday."

The words landed softly.

"I didn't know where you were."

He swallowed.

"But..."

His voice became quieter.

"...I hoped."

Ronan carefully turned the little carving over in his hands.

The bottom was dated.

Age six.

He picked up another.

Age seven.

Then another.

Age eight.

Twenty-eight years.

Twenty-eight handmade gifts.

None delivered.

Victor looked away toward the window.

"I couldn't stop making them."

"I told myself..."

He smiled sadly.

"...that one day I'd give them to you."

The silence stretched between them.

Not painful.

Just full.

Ronan closed the chest gently.

"You know..."

"What?"

"I don't think I want them."

Victor's face fell.

Then Ronan smiled.

"I'd rather make the next ones with you."

For the first time in decades...

Victor cried without trying to hide it.

He nodded once.

"I'd like that."

---

That evening, children gathered in the village square for story time.

Victor arrived carrying the carved wolf.

He handed it to a little boy.

"It needs a name."

The boy grinned.

"I'll think of one."

Victor smiled.

"So did I."

Ronan watched quietly from beside Adrian.

"You okay?"

Ronan nodded.

"I spent years wishing I could get my childhood back."

He looked toward Victor laughing with the children.

"I don't think that's possible."

"No."

Adrian agreed.

"It isn't."

Ronan smiled.

"But..."

He watched his father teaching another child how to carve a small wooden bird.

"...I think we can build a different one."

The lighthouse beam swept gently over the village.

Below it, a father and son sat side by side, surrounded by children, wood shavings, and laughter.

Not trying to recover lost years.

Simply making the next ones count.