"My husband told me, 'We're throwing out this table tomorrow,' but I was actually a shadow craftsman supporting a popular workshop with a three-year waiting list."

"I'm disposing of this dining table tomorrow." Those were the words my husband told me on our fifth wedding anniversary. He was replacing it with a new Italian piece he'd chosen with his mistress. Did he think I would cry and cling to him? Unfortunately, I don't have that kind of energy. Because I knew the truth. This table wasn't just "old furniture." It was my masterpiece, the first piece I'd ever made during my apprenticeship—the origin point of the "shadow craftsperson" who had revived my family's workshop from the brink of closure and transformed it into a popular atelier with a three-year waiting list. My husband knows nothing. Not the value of the table his wife polished every day, nor the true face hidden behind her obedient smile. What's being discarded isn't the table—it's five years of a false marriage. I quietly reach beneath the table. There, sleeping there, is the "insurance" I'd placed there in our first year of marriage. Wood is honest. That's why I understand too. What is truly precious, and who I should meet next. A story of restoration and new love, woven by a craftsperson's hands.