The Workshop I Never Noticed
I frowned, struggling to reconcile her claim with what I knew of Rowan’s motor challenges, because fine hand movements had always required immense effort from him.
“He worked on it?” I repeated.
Hannah nodded and glanced toward a small adjoining room we had once intended to use as a playroom but had largely left untouched.
“There’s something you should see,” she said.
I followed her into that side room, where I found a modest table set against the window, covered not with toys but with child-sized carving tools, sandpaper squares, and blocks of soft pine partially shaped into recognizable forms. The space bore the marks of quiet industry, curls of wood shavings gathered neatly in a bin, sketches pinned to a corkboard, and on the far corner of the table a thick notebook with a worn navy cover.
Hannah picked up the notebook and held it out to me.
“This is Rowan’s journal,” she said.
When I opened it, I discovered pages filled with drawings—birds in various stages of flight, flowers with exaggerated petals, simple animals rendered with careful lines—and beneath each illustration were short descriptions written in Hannah’s tidy script.
“Today Rowan sanded the wings until they felt smooth.”
“He pointed to the sky and smiled after finishing this one.”
“He kept trying, even when his hands grew tired.”
