Within a Man's Heart by Tom Winton

did nothing but deepen every time I saw her. That’s why instead of just keeping some distance between us as I had all along, I widened that space a little more each time we got together.
    Of course , Gina knew something was up, but she still didn’t know exactly what. She didn’t know now how my heart had been broken in New York. She didn’t know how it happened or who was involved. But with my plan to end us already in place, I saw no reason to burden her with all the painful details. The only thing I needed to tell her was that it would be best for both of us if we went our separate ways. And that’s exactly what I was going to do one sunny September afternoon when she insisted she come over to show me how to cut firewood.     
    Although I’d felt like a bumbling, fumbling idiot more than a few times since moving up to Mountain Step, I can’t begin to explain how inadequate I felt that day—having a woman teach me how to use a chainsaw. But, in my own defense, the only other time I’d ever even picked up one of those contraptions was the day we found the used one at a garage sale.
    Much as I didn’t like it, I watched Gina and listened closely as she taught me how to mix fuel with oil and then operate the thing. I also paid close attention when she showed me how to sharpen its chain, and the blade of my axe. I must say, I was pretty proud of myself. I caught on in no time at all. Gina had brought along her own saw, too; and before I knew it, both of us clad in protective glasses and leather gloves, we were buzzing away at two fallen trees. And I was darn glad we were. I wanted to get the job over with. I needed to finally tell her what I had to. For far too long, the anticipation and dread had been eating away at my insides. I was at the point where I couldn’t wait a single minute longer than I had to.
    Fortunately, it didn’t take long to saw the tree trunks into smaller, more manageable sections. All we had left to do was split them and stack the smaller pieces next to the back porch. We killed our saws and before going around to the front of the cabin to put hers back in her truck, Gina said, “Don’t even think about swinging that axe until I get back, Chris. I’ll just be a minute. ”
    Then, as she walked away dusting wood shavings off her shirt, I thought, I don’t think so. It’s bad enough having to have a woman teach me how to do all this stuff, but splitting wood . . . that’s not going to happen. It’s a manly thing. I might be a lot of things, but I’m no wuss. I’ll show her what I can do. I’ll split this thing with one swing. Here . . . I’ll stand this piece of wood on top of this other one.
    Once I did that, I waited until I could see in my periphery Gina walking back up the driveway. When I did I thought, Okay, here she comes!
    I raised the axe over my head, reared it back, way, way back then yanked it down with everything I had. And I missed. Not completely, but I only nicked the bark. The axe cut right through it and, with tremendous force, kept on coming down. Sharp as a butcher’s cleaver it was homing in on my right foot.
    “OH NO!” Gina yelled when the blade sliced right into the soft toe of my sneaker. “I just sharpened that thing! Are you okay!”
    “I don’t know,” I answered in a doubtful and concerned tone, as she came running up to me. “That blade’s a good inch inside the rubber.”
    “Damn it, Chris! I told you to wait until I came back! You’re supposed to stand with your feet apart when you swing an axe . . . for just this reason. Here, let’s take a look.” she said, squatting down, beginning to untie my shoe.
    “I don’t feel anything.” I said.
    “Sharp as that thing is, you wouldn’t.”
    Now I did feel like a wuss. Just like the all-thumbs, incompetent city slicker I was. And Gina didn’t do much to diminish that feeling of inadequacy.
    Shaking her head as she grabbed the sneaker and pulled it off, she said, “Christian Crews, you