Maren didn't answer. After he left, she picked up his card and slid it beneath a paperweight. Later that afternoon she called a portable milling company outside Ukiah and asked about hiring a specialty rig with an experienced operator. She did not ask for a full breakdown. She wanted a single controlled exploratory cut, and she was willing to pay for only the amount of information that cut could provide.
The man on the phone initially thought she had misunderstood his rates. Mobilizing equipment capable of handling giant coastal salvage took time, transport, setup, and skilled labor. One cut would be expensive on a per-board-foot basis, and it would leave most of the log untouched. Maren said she understood. She gave him measurements, sent photographs, explained the access road, and asked him to quote a safe setup with the option to stop after one pass. Two days later, he emailed a number that made the hair at the back of her neck stand up.
That night Annie found her mother sitting at the kitchen table again. On one side lay the milling estimate; on the other, an unpaid electricity bill and a school field-trip form. Annie asked whether they were in trouble, and Maren hated the question because she knew it hadn't appeared out of nowhere. Children hear the way adults close cabinet doors, see the length of time a parent spends checking a bank account, and learn to connect the clues whether anyone explains them or not. Maren told her the truth carefully, without handing her the weight of the decision.
"I made a purchase that might turn out to be a mistake," she said. "I need to spend a little more to find out. It won't change whether you have dinner or a roof or somebody to pick you up from school. But I am thinking hard about it."
"Is it the big tree?" Annie asked.
"It is."
Her daughter sat down opposite her and looked at the papers. "Grandpa used to say you can't know what's in a piece until you open it," she offered. Then, after a pause that made her sound much older than eleven, she added, "But he also said you have to know where to stop cutting."
Maren laughed for the first time that day. "He did say that."
Annie pointed to the quote. "Then do the cut that tells you when to stop."
The simplicity of it settled something. Maren didn't sign that night. She waited until Luis had reviewed the access plan, Dale had looked at the logistics, and the rental company confirmed that an experienced operator would control the work. She kept the ordinary shop jobs moving and took the exploratory cost from funds earmarked for equipment replacement, fully aware that borrowing against that future was a risk. She booked the cut for a Saturday morning in the third week of April, allowing the time necessary to prepare and arrange the equipment properly.
Word traveled as fast as the rumor had. The cut became a local spectacle in the way uncertain ventures do when everybody already knows their own opinion. I came because I wanted to see the result and because, if it went badly, somebody ought to be present who could help Maren