The first months on the mill rota were brutal in piano keys and wood. We lived in cycles: two weeks in the city handling the mill’s maintenance and three days home to sleep in our own bed. Mateo ran the local jobs. Jonah began his foreman training, rising early to handle day crews while I took the paperwork off Mark’s chest. We bought a second van and a small storage bay for extra tools. The line of credit we’d secured provided breathing room, and the accountant called us “scalable and sensible,” which felt like a backhanded compliment until we’d had it explained.
Romance flexed under new pressure. There were nights I slept alone in a motel near the mill because Collins’s schedule demanded it, and there were mornings when Mark would drive home at breakneck speed and arrive with a coffee a
