That afternoon, I drove out to the Works on my own.

The gates were chained. I had the key.

Inside, it was cold and dark and silent. Dust everywhere. Pigeons in the roof. Long rows of machines covered in plastic sheets. The big windows were dirty, but the afternoon light still came through in long gold stripes.

I walked down the main floor slowly.

I remembered it full of noise. Saws. Sanders. Men shouting over the machines. The smell of fresh-cut maple. My dad, in his canvas apron, showing me how to read the grain.

At the far end of the floor, I found his old workbench.

It was still there. Thick oak, scarred and stained from thirty years of work. His tools were long gone. But in the corner of the bench, carved neatly into the wood, were three letters and a number.

R.H. 1984.

The year he started. The year he was twenty-four.

I put my hand on those letters for a long time.

Then I sat down on the dusty floor, next to my dad's bench, in my dad's empty factory, and I cried like a kid.