Cabin_ Two Brothers, a Dream, and Five Acres in Maine - Lou Ureneck [56]
I agreed.
Neither had the carpenter’s original conception anticipated an ell to the structure. As we had discovered when we audited our materials and examined the joinery, he had designed one big cabin and two smaller cabins. He had been true to my “family compound” exhortation. We modified his big cabin, making it longer, and reconceived one of the smaller boxes as the ell. We decided to fit them together at the front of the cabin, to the right (facing the front). We measured and cut the beams for the ell, then chiseled and shaved our own mortises and tenons to connect the ell, at a right angle, to the main part of the cabin. This reconception, excluding one of the smaller boxes, would mean lots of leftover beams, and already the prospect of a small barn was planted in my mind.
Kevin and I did this work in the weeks before and after Christmas. We drove up from Portland, and sometimes we stayed at the inn. It was an enjoyable time for me. I liked his company and conversation, and I was getting to know him better. We imagined summer weekends at the cabin, filling it with family, and cooking outdoors, fishing in the nearby streams and swimming in the lake. The talk appealed to both of us, especially after an exhausting day when our muscles were sore and the conversation kept us engaged in the cabin without having to lift one more heavy beam. The conversations ranged wider, though mostly I was listening and giving Kevin the space to open up. I had been away from him nearly seven years, when I was in Philadelphia, and he had done a lot of growing up in that time. He described the trouble he had been in and the heartache he had caused his father. “My dad has done a lot for us kids,” he said. “I think it’s time for us to show our appreciation better.” As he itemized his scrapes with school and the law, I realized that I had been an absent uncle as he had moved through a difficult period of his life. I felt another stab of regret. It had been selfish of me to be so involved in my own problems that I had not gotten involved in my nephew’s. But it also occurred to me that the cabin, even before it was built, was helping me to know him better and giving me a chance, even at this late date, to offer some counsel and support.
These conversations, easy and natural, were as good for me as they were for him. It was clear that he was proud of his father, and disappointed in a lot of what he had done to upset him. When he got down on himself, I told him some of the hell-raising stories of his father growing up. He listened intently. He seemed not to know much about Paul’s past. I left nothing out because it was a history showing that, while Paul had been wild when he was young, the main elements of his character, then and now, were generosity, reliability and steadiness. “Your dad got in every bit as much trouble as you,” I told him. “And look at him now.” Kevin seemed to take heart from his father’s experience. He was quiet for a while. Then he told me he was worried about his father and that he seemed to be under a lot of stress. “Paulie and me haven’t helped, I know, getting in trouble and all,” he said. “But he seems to have a lot on his mind right now.” I told him I worried that I had put even more pressure on him by asking him to help with the cabin.
“No way,” said Kevin. “It’s something he likes.” Kevin suggested there was more conflict at home, in Paul’s marriage, than I had been aware of. “Thank God he has the cabin,” Kevin added. “It’s a good escape for him.”
I was glad to hear this from Kevin, because I had begun to think just the opposite—that the cabin was taking too much of his time and had set down one more burden on him, which might have accounted for his absence. Now I could see that those absences were due to the time he needed to deal with issues at home. It wasn’t all work or the church.
One morning, soon after Christmas, Kevin and I arrived