The Cherry Wardrobe

Built to last, its vertical lines are plumb. The only ornamentation, a simple crown molding, the inward curve of the cavetto. Four drawers that grow deeper in descending order. Above them a pair of doors, the cedar-lined interior. A space I could not resist that day, the wardrobe still in my husband’s shop, unfinished. He had planed the case by hand. Ribbons of cherrywood curled at his feet. I want to climb inside, I said. Be my guest, he said. I hoisted myself up, tucked myself in. Dark inside. It smelled like him, the familiar scent he wore—wood dust, resin. I could touch with my fingertips the raw wood, the hidden joinery. I could hear him humming, tapping the chisel with a wooden mallet. I could hear the world beyond us, too—muffled sounds of people passing in the alley. I sat in the darkness, listening. We were happy that year, the doctors cautiously optimistic. Inside the wardrobe, a child’s game— I could be lost, I could be found. I knew that when I pushed open the doors, daylight would come streaming.