Victoria also made time for the neighborhood in ways that did not require her wealth to be the center of every activity. She helped Alice put winter covers on her garden beds and brought food to a community shelter where Daniel volunteered to repair worn tables and shelves. When an arts center asked for help creating a beginner woodworking class, she offered fundraising experience and helped its board organize a transparent budget. Daniel agreed to teach a few sessions alongside other local craftspeople, provided that the students received proper protective equipment and instruction. The class began with basic measuring and safe use of hand tools, not grand speeches about life-changing destiny.
A teenager named Maya Chen, the same volunteer who had admired his work at the fundraiser, attended the first session with her mother. She was nervous about handling the tools and embarrassed when her first joint fit poorly. Daniel showed her how to inspect the error, mark the wood again, and try a different approach. Victoria watched from the doorway while the girl adjusted the piece and finally produced a fit she could be proud of. Her smile reminded Victoria of the afternoon she had made her first thin curl of wood beneath Daniel's patient instruction.
Alice teased them both about the growing number of people who seemed to consider the workshop a second home. "At this rate you'll need a bigger table for tea," she announced one afternoon. Daniel replied that he could build one from reclaimed boards. Victoria suggested they might borrow chairs from the arts center for special occasions instead. Alice pretended to be disappointed that neither had offered to buy her a palace. Then she served biscuits and asked them to stop talking long enough to eat.
The old yellow kitchen table returned to Victoria's life that winter. She discovered it in a storage unit she had rented after Eleanor's death, wrapped in blankets behind boxes of photographs and kitchen equipment. For years she had avoided visiting the unit because everything inside seemed to belong to a version of her life she had sealed away. When she finally opened the blankets, the table looked smaller than she remembered. One leg wobbled, the yellow paint had chipped along the edges, and her mother's pencil marks remained on the underside where she had measured a repair long ago.
Victoria asked Daniel to help her bring it home. He examined the table carefully and pointed out which joints required strengthening and which marks he thought should remain untouched. "I can make it perfectly level," he offered, "but you may want to keep the marks that make it yours." Victoria ran her fingers along a faint scratch near the edge, remembering the day she had dropped a mixing bowl while helping Eleanor cook.