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By Root 326 0

was reassembled upstairs, its squat bulk anchored the entire first floor. Mom cleaned it up and rubbed it down with blacking, and although the shiny bits were dimmed and pitted, they did take a polish, and the blue Monarch logo still scrolled beautifully across the white porcelain enameling of the oven door. She rarely baked in the stove, but we often came in from wood-gathering expeditions to the scent of smoked ham and vegetables in a cast iron pan that had percolated on the stovetop all day long, and as we ate, our caps and mittens dried in the warming ovens flanking the central stovepipe and its butterfly damper, which reminded me loosely of the Batman logo. On cold school mornings, we tussled to see how many of us could plant our hindquarters on the warm oven door.

In winter the day began with the sounds of Dad building the fire. From our beds upstairs we’d hear the hinge-squeak of the firebox door and the clank of the lids and center plate as he lifted and set them aside. Next came the rolling rumble of the grates as he shook them free of ash. The grates were rotated by means of a detachable cast iron handle fitted over a stub of square shaft protruding from just above the draft door, and were concave on one side and convex on the other; each time Dad twisted the shaft, a nickel-plated indicator countersunk on the front of the stove slid back and forth, alternately reading WOOD or COAL. When the grates were clear and returned to the WOOD position, he detached the handle and stowed it in one of the warming ovens. Even this action had its own distinct sound: the tinny scrape of the handle sliding back in place and the clunk of the warming oven door stakes dropping into their pockets. If the ash pan was in need of emptying, we’d hear the gritty rasp of it being pulled from the square steel pouch where it nested beneath the grates. Then the front door would open and close and the house would go quiet while Dad walked to the garden and flung the ashes across the snow, where they left a skid mark like a miniature thundercloud run aground.

Then he was back inside, and even now I can summon the image of him downstairs alone, the day’s work in mind, the simple ceremony unfolding. The crumple of the newspaper as he packs it in above the grates. The careful placing of the kindling, and then a few larger sticks of wood to catch and grow the first flames. The lids nesting flush with the stovetop when he replaces them, fitting their receptacles with jigsaw-puzzle precision. The scratch of the match against the sooty interior of the firebox door, Dad ducking his head to light the tinder, the prayerful stance of it, him on one knee and blowing gently at the flame in the predawn darkness, and us his family still abed. Mom and Dad still use the Monarch. It sits right where it has since the day it came back upstairs, just feet from the dining room table. Even today, when we kids gather as adults, someone (or sometimes two of us, if personal dimensions allow) winds up perched on the woodstove door. We sit there even when the weather is warm and there is no fire. Something more than warmth draws us to the stove, something having to do with memory and the center of gravity.

When it comes to parenting tools, it’s tough to beat a woodstove. Pick up your room, we say, because…because…never mind what Daddy’s room looks like! Daddy is not the subject here! Daddy is a full-on poster boy of undiagnosed behavioral disorders! Be nice to everyone, we say, because…because…Yes, even that lady who “waved” at Daddy in the Wal-Mart parking lot…and the snotty little ingrate who stole your beach bucket…Why? Because…because…well, because passive-aggressive is the only way to roll, sweetheart. In other words, how does one convey cause and effect to a six-year-old?

By having her haul firewood, that’s how. You wanna lie around toasting your tootsies, darling daughter? Then get out there and lug some cellulose.

In a sense, my siblings and I lucked out. Dad logged every winter, which meant the sawmill came most summers, leaving behind a giant pile of slab