Opia

Chapter 22

The fire was starting to come alive in front of him. A couple years had passed since James had tried to light one, but he still had the touch.

Light footsteps behind him let James know Artis had come into the room. Turning, he took in her appearance. Without all the face hardware, she looked different. A good different. A lot of years had passed since he'd seen her face free from adornments, and he was surprised to realize he had kind of missed the natural Artis.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.

"Like what?"

"Like you don't recognize me."

"Just taking in the new look."

"Yeah, well don't get used to it." She walked over to the window and looked out over the mountains.

James let her be and added another piece of wood to the fire, watching as the flames took to it.

When he had been younger, he'd always been amazed at how fast his father could get a good fire going. Once, when no one else was around, James had decided to try it for himself. The match had burned too close to his fingers and he'd dropped it out of fear. The match had landed on a small pile of tinder, setting it ablaze. The flames had burned through the pile and started in on the hearth rug underneath. Cooper had swooped into the room in time to put it out before it reached anything else, then he had let fly a backhand across his son's face when the danger was gone. James could almost taste the tang of blood from the split lip that hit had caused.

Familiar anger rose as it always did when he remembered run ins with his dad, but he forced it back down, determined to start letting the past go. That hit had been before things changed.

"Must be quite a thought." The comment from Artis brought James back to the present. She was looking at him curiously.

"There's a lot of memories in this house," he said, standing.

"Didn't look like a pleasant one."

He shrugged.

"Tell me about you and Cooper," Artis said. "I want to understand."

"You only have the best memories of my dad. Let that be enough."

"It's not enough if it's not a complete picture of who he was."

"He really was a good man."

"Always?"

"Does it matter?"

"I'm trying to tell you that it does. Do you not want to tell me because the memories smart or because you don't want to hurt my perception of your dad?"

"Both I guess."

"Let me understand," Artis pushed.

Jame turned back to the fire. It would need to bed fed again before long, just like Artis' insatiable curiosity. He looked back toward the prober.

"Fine," he said, "but you'll have to follow me outside. I need to cut more wood."

Artis followed him out back. When he grabbed the axe she said, "I could try lasering those in half."

"There's more to chopping wood than breaking it in to piece," he replied. He placed a log on the chopping block, then lifted the axe in the air above his head, bringing it down with a satisfying crack.

"Oh really. And what would that be?"

"Power. Sweat. Good, hard work."

"So it's a guy thing."