Forging Splendor

by S R Nulton

  “Yeah, maybe. Well, give them my best and let the girls know that if they need me I can be there in a few hours.”

  “Will do, man. Stay cool. I’ll text you with news.”

  Then he was gone.

  And Ethan felt like he was all alone again, unwanted and unloved.

  He went to work that day, the same as always, but his concentration was shot because he kept checking his phone for a message. He just wanted something to tell him that they wanted him there, that they remembered him at all.

  All he had was a single text from Geo around lunch saying that Candace was fine and heading home in a few hours.

  Once again, he was left in the cold as the family gathered round to support someone. In the past, that someone had been Cayden or Heather, but now it was Candace.

  But it was never Ethan.

  Never had been, never would be.

  So, he did what he always had and threw himself into his art. At least when he was working the emotions had a purpose and went away a little bit.

  If only they would go away forever…

  ~

  I woke up late the next morning and stretched, enjoying the feel of the sun shining through my window. I rarely slept in, but I had been so inspired by my conversation with Marina the night before that I just had to paint. I ended up working until nearly four, falling into bed when I was too tired to see straight anymore.

  I was quite proud of my picture though. It was a string of pearls splayed across an anvil, but instead of a fire in the background, I had the anvil on cliff that overlooked the ocean, lit by a brilliant sunset. It was slightly rusted and there were a few barnacles clinging to it if you knew where to look, but it still looked strong and enduring. The imagery wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but it did to me. I hoped that Ethan would see it too.

  It was him, after all.

  My smile and relaxed attitude lasted through a shower and a quick breakfast and all the way into the office. I couldn’t wait to show Ethan what I’d painted when he came in for lunch.

  But he never did.

  I called down to him through the intercom, but when he didn’t respond, I let it go. He might have been on a roll with a project and I knew how that went. Sometimes you just needed to keep hammering away at something ‘til it was done, no pun intended. Ok, a little pun intended. It was a pretty good pun, after all.

  By dinner, though, I was becoming a bit concerned. Nevertheless, I made up a plate of food and left it in his office for him. He had to come out eventually and when he did, dinner would be waiting.

  The days followed that pattern and flew by until I suddenly realized that it had been a week since I’d seen him. He hadn’t stopped his music like the last time, but it had changed to some truly epic orchestral scores and heavy rock instead of the normally mellow mix he preferred. At that point, I was officially worried. He had clammed up in a similar way when JJ stopped by, but this time there seemed to be no reason for it. I was stumped.

  Nevertheless, I decided to do something about it. First thing Saturday morning, I walked over to his office and knocked. When there was no answer, I went in. The place was a mess again, though not as badly as before, so I ignored it and knocked on the door of the forge. This time I got an answer.

  “What?” Ethan growled as he opened the door. He didn’t look good at all. His hair was greasy and disheveled. His beard was messy and sticking out in odd directions. His clothes were covered with burn marks and soot and grease stains. Most surprising of all were his eyes, though. The orange coloration looked nearly neon because of how red they were.

  “Ethan, are you all right? You aren’t sick, are you?”

  “Of course not. I’m just busy.”

  I frowned and thought over the orders, but couldn’t think of a thing that would require him to work himself to death.

  “Oooo-kaaay. Why don’t we go on a quick walk and then you can get back to it when you’re fresh.”

  His scowl was not exactly heartening. “I told you, I’m busy. Why are you bothering me?”

  That made me blink. “Because I’m worried. I haven’t seen or talked to you since you dropped me off after dinner with your parents, which was over a week ago.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, making the long strands stand up in every direction. “Look, I don’t have time for this. I’m getting back to work.” And with that, he slammed the door in my face.

  I stood there for a good minute, staring at the door in complete shock. Then I turned and walked out.

  “If I’m not wanted, then I’m not wanted. This is just further proof that Geo and Rosa are hallucinating. He isn’t interested in me. He apparently doesn’t even like me,” I muttered as I headed back to my little house. It was the weekend and there was no need to work.

  Instead, of staying inside, though, I grabbed my portable easel, my travel pack, and a canvas before heading down to the beach. If I stayed inside while feeling that confused, I was likely to either go crazy or destroy something.

  I spent nearly the whole day down there, just painting and trying to forget the hurt I’d felt when Ethan had dismissed me.

  It was bringing up a lot of hurt that I thought I’d dealt with from when my father died. That was a time when my mother decided that work was more important than reassuring us that we were loved. I’d already dealt with it, talking it out with her rather extensively when I was a teen, but those sorts of things stick with you.

  It didn’t help that Ethan was the closest thing I’d had to a romantic relationship in my life, which was sad because we weren’t together in any way. Still, I didn’t have much experience. I wasn’t the type to really want a boyfriend in high school because I figured it was unlikely that we’d get married and I didn’t date casually. I’d always figured that dating was with the intent of figuring out if marriage was the next step. My friends said it made me put off the wrong vibes. It was the same thing in college, only then it was because I was too busy absorbing information and trying to figure out how I was going to make my dream happen. After college, I was working and trying to deal with JJ’s craziness and making my sisters’ business a success.

  Basically, I was 29, had never had a boyfriend, and the first time I decide to put myself out there by showing I cared I get the brush off. It didn’t seem like an auspicious start.

  I made a couple decisions that day. For one, I decided to go to town the next day and get out of the house. I felt like I needed to not be so available. I also decided that I needed to wait and see what happened before taking a step back into my role as assistant. My emotions were going haywire right then, so writing the whole thing off and leaving sounded fantastic, but I knew I’d regret it in the morning if I left without trying to see things through. Which led to my third decision. I was going to put a call in for reinforcements. I’m a strong believer in keeping your promises, so I did what I’d threatened the last time Ethan had gone off the deep end.

  I was calling Rosa.

  ~

  “What do you think you are doing, Ethan?” Rosa asked as she burst into his forge.

  He blinked at her in confusion. “Glass-blowing. Or, at least that’s what I’m trying to do. I don’t think I have the right equipment though. I thought that some glass might be interesting to add to my sculptures. Did you know it is actually a liquid, which is why old fashioned windows had to be flipped regularly or they would look like the glass was melting?”

  She folded her arms over her ample chest and glared him down. “I don’t care about the glass, niño. I care about the fact that you are working like a man possessed and snapping at the lovely young woman who dotes on you.”

  Ethan frowned. “Aggy? You’re here because of Aggy?” He tried to think back to when he last saw her, but he was so tired that he couldn’t remember. He did recall being short with her when he saw her, but not much more.

  “When was the last time you slept?” Her voice had shifted from annoyance to worry, and Ethan relaxed a bit. He knew that
tone well and it was comforting.

  “Last night, I think, but not for long. I’ve had so many ideas.” But he couldn’t remember most of them. He had thought about writing them down, but decided that it would be faster just to try them all right away. He kind of missed sleep though.

  Rosa shook her head pulled him bodily from the forge and into the sun, which made him blink rapidly. He hadn’t been in the sun in a while.

  They made it into his house and she pushed him down onto one of his couches.

  “You sit and tell me what is wrong. I got a call from your Aggy saying you were just as bad as when the cow came by,” Rosa told him. She always referred to JJ as ‘the cow’ and it always made Ethan smile. “And then I show up and find that you haven’t eaten hardly anything and that your bed hasn’t been slept in and that you are still in your workshop on a day you normally take off for church. What happened?”

  The lack of sleep had made him more suggestible, so for the first time in a long time, Ethan told someone what was wrong.

  “Candace was hospitalized. Alcohol Poisoning. One of the younger ones found her.”

  “Oh, niño…”

  “And I had to find out from the news. They were talking about me, you know, about how I’m estranged from the family. About how I hadn’t been seen going into the hospital. They called Geo, the girls did. They called him and asked him to come and he did. And he asked them if I should and they said no. At least, I assume they did, because he would have told me to come if they’d wanted me there.”

  “So because you felt like you were unwanted, you treated someone who likes you, a good friend of yours who cares deeply, like she was unwanted?”

  Ethan nodded glumly. When she said it that way, he sounded stupid. It was getting hard to think though because the couch was so comfortable. He thought he should lean his head back and see if it was a soft as it felt. And it was…

  When Ethan woke up, Rosa was still there. She’d made a big batch of tamales and froze most of them so he could eat them later.

  “Thank you,” he said after showering and eating some real food for the first time in a week. His office was always stocked with snack foods, but he was thinking he should either put real food in there or get rid of all of it. Either way, he would have been better off because both would have forced him to eat better.

  “Now,” Rosa began. “You will apologize to Agatha Grace the next time you see her and you will tell her everything that happened and why you reacted like you did. She deserves more than half answers, sí? So you will give them to her. I know for a fact that she was as in the dark as I was because we both avoid watching the news. Too much gossip.”

  And with that, she left. Just in time for Ethan’s phone to start ringing.

  He was still a little groggy from the nap he’d taken, so he answered without looking and regretted it immediately. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to her, but he wanted to prepare himself, at the very least.

  “Hello?”

  “Ethan?” It was Candace. It was his mother.

  He cleared his throat and wondered what to say to the woman who gave him life and then gave him up. It wasn’t the first time he’d spoken to her, but it felt like it.

  “How are you?” he finally asked.

  She laughed, but it wasn’t the full-bodied laugh he had heard from her before. This one was bitter and weak, but at least it was real. “I’ve been better. They let me out of the hospital about a week ago and I decided to head to rehab right away. Caitlin was the one who found me and I didn’t want her to have to go through something like that ever again.”

  Lucky for Ethan, Geo had kept him up to date with the ins and outs of his birth family, so he knew that Caitlin was the youngest at only 17.

  “Ethan, I called because I’ve started 12 step and I… I wanted to get the hardest apology over as soon as possible. So here it is: I’m sorry for leaving you at the hospital as a baby, and I’m sorry I didn’t raise you. I can’t think very straight right now because I’m an absolute mess, but I promise that when I can understand it myself, I will stop by and explain it all to you. I just wanted to tell you one more thing, and that is that I did want you. I always wanted and loved you, but I think I’ve been sick for a long time and I’m finally going to have to confront it.”

  He sat there for a long minute and said nothing. Finally, he cleared his throat and began. “I want to say I forgive you, but I think we both need for you to fully explain yourself before I can say it and you can hear it. I will say that I’m glad you are okay and getting the help you need, and I’m also glad you called. I… I was worried, but…”

  He stopped, but she knew what he meant, so she continued for him.

  “But you didn’t know if you could call. Now you do. I’m calling you from the medical center’s number, so if you need to talk to me, you can call here and ask for me. Just tell them who you are and they’ll put you right through. I’ll make sure of it. Okay?”

  “Okay. You get better. The girls need you to get better.”

  She started sobbing, but managed to say goodbye before hanging up.

  Ethan sat there and stared at his phone ‘til he saw the lights of Aggy’s car come up the drive.

  As soon as she closed her car door, he was there, helping her with her many packages.

  “Ethan! Hi. You, um, look better.”

  Her nervousness tore at him because he knew he was the one at fault.

  “I am. Let me help you get these things inside and then maybe we can talk?”

  She nodded and smiled tentatively at him. Within minutes they were settled on her porch and Ethan was stuck trying to think up what to say.

  Finally he settled for, “I’m sorry. I was dealing with some pretty dark emotions and I did what I’m used to, but it was wrong to take it out on you. I will say this, I honestly don’t remember what I said to you or seeing you there at all. I… the night of the dinner, my mother was taken to the hospital…”

  And he did as Rosa had commanded and told her everything, culminating in his housekeeper kicking his butt and his mother calling him from rehab.

  Aggy didn’t say anything, but she did reach out and take hold of his hand, forgiving him once more for his mistakes.

  They sat in silence and watched the sun set over the water until the sky was full of stars and the darkness in Ethan’s heart had been pushed away.

  His next sculpture would be called ‘Forgiveness.’

  CHAPTER 12: WHEN YOU NEED A BREAK

  I AM THRILLED to say that Rosa’s intervention seemed to be a turning point for Ethan. Over the next few weeks he had times where his emotions were running high, but they weren’t running him anymore.

  Artists are a special breed that many people don’t seem to understand. It is generally accepted that they feel deeply, but that is a generalization that doesn’t really pan out all the time. Everyone feels deeply, and emotion does tend to overflow into creativity. For some people, though, it’s the only outlet they have found that lets them actually feel something. It’s like there’s a barrier between them and their emotions and only the act of creation can fully breach it. That’s why Ethan had such a hard time dealing with his emotions. He seemed to be a lot like me in that the things he felt were powerful but so deep under the surface that it was hard for others to tell what was really going on.

  In the end, he had to realize that talking things through wasn’t going to make things any more difficult or destroy his artistic ability, it would just make him a healthier person. Once we got him to see that, instead of shutting down, he opened up. It actually brought a unique quality to his work that no one had ever seen before and I couldn’t wait to see what his customers said.

  Just after Geo revealed the plot on Ethan’s career, I brought up the idea of doing a private show, just for Ethan’s clients. If they had purchased one of his pieces and he had given them a receipt, they were invited. It was a way to drum up good will and address the rumors in one fell swoop!
/>
  After all, two of the more damaging pieces of gossip, and possibly the least vicious of the bunch, were that Ethan was making low quality pieces and stealing his ideas from others. People pay good money for art and they want it to be good quality and last for several generations at least. If they wanted temporary artwork, they would go to a high-end restaurant. Also, art lovers get very upset about people taking credit for ideas that are not their own. They aren’t just buying your artwork, they are purchasing a little piece of your creativity, something to hold onto and dream about creating themselves.

  “That’s the last of it,” Ethan said as he watched the moving truck exit the property. “We should be heading out soon too. I figure we’ll get there and finish the set up, then change at Geo’s just before guests start to show.”

  “Sounds good! See you in fifteen.” I waved at him and jogged over to the guesthouse, still thinking about the sculptures we were showing that evening.

  Ethan had some really riveting new pieces to show off. Framing them in Geo’s gallery was a brilliant move. It was well known that Geo had at least one piece from every major period of Ethan’s life, which would allow the people who mattered (aka: those who showed up) to view the progression of his style in one fell swoop! It’s hard to claim that someone is stealing their concepts from others when you can actually see that they were all made by the same hand.

  Geo had already unpacked the trucks and was just looking for some last minute advice on where to put everything by the time we got there. Traffic was a nightmare, which was odd considering we were kind of in the middle of nowhere, but we got to the vineyard soon enough.

  “It looks fine,” I told the brothers when they decided that the room needed to be rearranged. Again. “Just leave it and go get ready! The guests will be here in 30 minutes. And Geo, thanks again for going along with my idea.”