Mara almost walked past it. The chair leaned awkwardly against the dumpster at the end of the street, one leg broken clean through, its seat frayed and sagging. A note taped to the backrest read: “Free – broken.” Her first instinct was to keep walking. She had a perfectly good chair at home, one of those sleek metal ones from the flat-pack store. But something about this chair stopped her—maybe the curve of the armrest, softened by years of touch, or the way the wood still glowed beneath the ...

Mara almost walked past it. The chair leaned awkwardly against the dumpster at the end of the street, one leg broken clean through, its seat frayed and sagging. A note taped to the backrest read: “Free – broken.” Her first instinct was to keep walking. She had a perfectly good chair at home, one of those sleek metal ones from the flat-pack store. But something about this chair stopped her—maybe the curve of the armrest, softened by years of touch, or the way the wood still glowed beneath the ...