exploratory cut. Shaw's nine-page report went behind a separate tab, with its warnings and limitations highlighted rather than hidden. If somebody wanted to know whether the tree had been legally salvaged and whether the material could be traced back to its origin, she intended to answer without asking them to take her word for it.
Next came the moisture history. She compiled the readings taken since the first cut and discussed the limitations with Shaw and the specialist kiln operator who had helped with the prototype slab. Together they developed a realistic conditioning schedule for the remaining material, including checkpoints at which the project might have to pause or redesign a piece rather than force a slab that was not ready. She included sample finish panels treated with two different systems and the results of the testing she had commissioned to learn how they might behave under commercial use. She wrote plainly that the original char would be cleaned and stabilized, not left as loose carbon that could rub off on a guest's clothing.
Luis helped her build the production schedule. He was more skeptical of calendars than of wood, having seen enough deliveries delayed by weather, broken machinery, and suppliers who promised that a part would arrive Tuesday until Tuesday came and went. He made Maren list every outside trade the project would require: specialty cutting, kiln services, steel fabrication, protective transport, and assistance with installation. They called each prospective subcontractor before writing a date in the binder. A date based on a promise someone hadn't made was not a date, Luis said. It was a wish wearing a number.
The plan included two additional employees hired for defined stages, a possible equipment lease, and a contingency for the two slabs most likely to reveal serious defects during processing. Maren left the contingency visible. She had seen too many small firms win a commission by promising an impossible price and then lose everything trying to live up to it. The resort might be a beautiful opportunity, but she would not protect the opportunity by concealing the risks from the people paying for it. She also wouldn't accept a project so large that her existing customers had to be abandoned halfway through their orders.
By the time she finished, the binder had numbered tabs, a marked drawing set, schedules, photographs, samples, and written answers to questions that nobody had asked her yet. Annie sat with her one evening and helped check the index against the page numbers. She was delighted by the alphabetized sections and suggested using colors, which Maren did because it made the material easier to navigate under pressure. When they reached the tab listing hazards and limitations, Annie wanted to know why her mother was giving potential customers the reasons not to buy the wood.
"Because those reasons don't disappear when I close the binder," Maren told her. "If I tell them now, we can solve what can be solved. If I hide them, they become surprises somebody has to pay for later."
"Even if it means they say no?"
"Especially then."