His voice wavered, was closer to breaking than I'd ever heard.

Jimmy Doebler stared down at his unfinished brickwork.

I remembered years ago, seeing heat tester cones in Jimmy's old portable kiln-how they turned to pools of liquid rock in the fire. Right now, Jimmy's eyes looked a little hotter than those cones.

"All we want to do," Garrett told me, "is build this damn kiln. You want to help, fine. You want to criticize, get your sorry ass home."

I looked at the half-built little pig house.

I looked at my brother's fingers, scarred and bleeding and crusted with mortar.

My anger drained away, left a taste in my mouth not unlike a TV dinner tray.

I said, "Hand me a trowel."

end.