The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series)

by Smith, Daniel Arthur

  “Whoa nothing,” Abby’s voice was quiet, “you might think you can get away with being nasty in your studio but this is the real world. How dare you bully these nice people?”

  Will was caught off guard and did not quite know what to say. Will started to stutter a sentence, “Well just a minute Abby, I was just --.” Abby cut him off, “—Just a minute nothing. Go home Will. Go home. This has to stop. You don’t understand what you’re doing to yourself.” Abby turned and walked to the door. Mitch and Brian followed.

  Caroline sidled over to her uncle, “Listen to her uncle Will.”

  “Storm’s a comin’,” said Will with a wink. Caroline raised her eyebrows, looked to the door, back to her uncle, smiled, and then she too walked out the door.

  When Caroline joined the three outside Abby was moving both of her arms up and down to shake out whatever negative energy she felt could be expelled through her fingertips.

  “Are you ok?” asked Caroline.

  “It’s not me,” said Abby. “It’s him, and he doesn’t see it.”

  “I know,” said Caroline, “That’s why I called you to begin with.”

  “You were so right. He’s like this every day?”

  The door to the bar opened and out walked Terry Enders. Terry could not avoid Abby because she was right in front of the door.

  “Hey there, you okay?” asked Terry.

  “I’m fine Mr. Enders,” said Abby. Long since retired, Terry had been one of Abby and Caroline’s schoolteachers.

  “I’m sorry my father was so rude to you.”

  “Abby dear,” said Terry, “ Your father has been there for me when I’ve needed him many times over. We all need to blow off a little steam sometimes.”

  “He upset every one in the bar,” said Abby.

  “The only person he upset in the bar, just walked out and is talking to me right here,” said Terry. “Your father is a good man. Good night.”

  “Good night,” said Abby.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 12

  Will gazed up from the split log bench through the leafless willow branches. He marveled at how large the willow had become since Emily had planted the tree twenty long years ago. Though chemotherapy had made Emily feel ill, she had found the strength to go out to the bench in the early mornings to watch the sunrise. Often Will would wrap a blanket around her cold shoulders and hold her frail body to keep her warm. Emily found comfort next to him.

  Emily knew Will had concerns about the progress of the treatment so she told him that she had decided to plant and watch a tree grow tall. Watch as the tree aged with them. Will had suggested the now fifty-foot tall weeping willow and told Emily the seedling would thrive next to the lake. Will did not tell Emily why the fast growing willow tree had been his choice, yet she knew. Will’s hope that Emily could see the seedling grow to a tree kept her going. Shivering and weak Emily had put the roots deep into the ground.

  Sitting on the bench, gazing through the branches of the tree that had thrived next to the lake for those almost twenty years Will lost himself in thoughts of Emily. Thoughts where Emily was still alive, always exuberant, never weak, never dying. He felt her presence there. He felt their youth. He was not alone.

  * * * * *

  William Bellen and Emily Allen met during her college break when Emily took a summer job, detail painting for Will’s father. Will barely said a word to Emily the first weeks she worked at the studio. The studio was electric when Emily was there. Her detailing on the urns was as dazzling as Emily herself. Emily wore her chestnut hair to her shoulders making her hazel eyes all the more friendly and inviting, like her laughter, and she always wore a sleeveless blouse and Capri pants that came half way down her calves. Will did not say much to her. He could not think about anything else.

  Will tended the big wood-burning kiln, the only kiln at that time, and fed the oven’s voracious appetite for small logs. The temperatures in June and July that year had already been high and were twenty degrees higher working next to the kiln. Often Will did not wear a shirt when he chopped the logs by axe and then fed them into the kiln. Emily had secretly been sketching him from the window of the studio. She had taken notice of Will’s young frame, oily and covered with a fine mist of soot that made the tone of his body glisten.

  Will’s fascination with Emily had distracted him to near stupor. Will’s father was getting frustrated with all of the clay that Will was breaking, not much pottery was getting into the kiln or getting too far away. Will’s father finally resolved to coax Will into asking Emily to have lunch.

  When Will approached Emily with the sodas and sandwiches he had made himself and asked her to have lunch on the dock, she did not hesitate to say yes in fear he would change his mind.

  “Perfect timing,” said Emily. Emily grabbed Will’s hand and practically dragged him out to the lakeshore.

  Capitalizing on the opportunity to make an impression, Will began rattling out all of the conversation he had held back for the last two months. There was no pause for Emily to say anything. She thought the sweet boy’s behavior incredibly cute. Still Emily feared that Will was going to give himself the hiccups.

  Emily decided she needed to calm him down. Though what she did next would not exactly slow his heart. Will’s speech did slow, first to a crawl then a stop.

  As Will professed how modern kilns could change the family business, Emily stood up on the dock, pulled off her white blouse, tossed the shirt down, then undid her Capri pants and shimmied them to her feet. Emily stepped out of the crumpled pants one foot at a time. Standing in her bra and panties, Emily fixed her eyes on Will. Now silent, Will sat on the dock with his legs crossed, a sandwich in one hand and a soda in the other, his mouth open.

  “It is so hot today Will, let’s go swimming,” said Emily. She ran to the end of the dock and dove into the clear water of the lake. Emily surfaced fifteen feet away, her head bobbing above the water.

  Will was still sitting on the dock with his mouth open.

  “Well,” said Emily.

  “I’m coming.”

  Will tried to stand so quickly that he forgot his legs were crossed. He tumbled over the side of the dock, blue jeans, t-shirt, soda, and sandwich in hand.

  Will stood up next to the dock, the water at his waist and t-shirt soaked, still holding his soda. Emily, concerned for Will’s safety, wanted to call out to him to ask if he was ok. Instead, she could not help herself from laughing uncontrollably.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Will, the corners of his mouth pushing his cheeks up to his dripping ears.

  Will placed his soda on the dock. He waded a few feet out into the lake and then, still wearing his clothes, dove toward Emily. Will surfaced when he got to Emily. She immediately started splashing water in his face to which he splashed back. They played in the water and then went up to the soft green grass by the shoreline where they dried themselves in the warm air of the hot July day.

  Through the rest of July and all of August, a day did not go by that Emily and Will did not have lunch together.

  Emily had come to Willow Lake with her twin sister Mary and the two shared a cabin on their parent’s property that was the size of a small house. To make spending time together easier Will and Emily set Mary up with Will’s friend Tom. Tom’s parents owned the IGA grocery store kitty corner from the Stone Tavern. The four of them went boating, swimming, and had late night bonfires with six-packs of beer and steaks from the IGA.

  When not with Mary and Tom, Emily and Will would explore the many trails in the wooded hills surrounding Willow Lake sometimes disappearing for the whole afternoon. This prompted Will’s Father to go on about both of them slacking on the work that needed to be done around the studio. He really could not be happier for both of them.

  On rainy days Will and Emily stayed in the studio and marveled at each other’s artistic skills. Will had been raised a potter and, a master of the kick wheel, could bring up tall pots, squat pots, vases, and cups.
While at the wheel Will explained to Emily what he was doing. Emily took her turn at the wheel next to Will and made mess after mess. Will came over to Emily, put his arms around her, placed his hands gently below hers, and guided her. With Will’s guidance, Emily was able to even out the ball of clay to the center of her wheel and then indent the center in the right way so that the sides began to rise. Will explained to her that this was the dance of the clay. As he spoke, her neck quivered. When the spinning wheel stopped, Emily held a small pot and Will held Emily. Their eyes were closed, frozen in the moment.

  Emily in turn helped Will with his sketching.

  Will always carried a notepad and a pencil in his back pocket. He was ready for a fiddlehead fern at the edge of a trail or a cardinal perched in an almost hidden tree. Every small bird, leaf, and flower was captured in his sketchpad as an ornate possibility for his pieces. Will’s sketches matured to full designs and lines of pottery and he would explain to Emily how important he thought the ornamentation could be if done the right way.

  Will was not only sketching butterflies and trees. At times Emily would look up from her sketchbook to find that she had become the object of his study. Her body would go warm under Will’s blue gaze. On Will’s square jaw, a constant sultry smile that Emily could not resist to mirror.

  Emily sketched everything. For Emily each page in her sketchpad was a prototype for a painting. Emily sketched with pastels when she could because the true subjects for Emily’s paintings were not the objects themselves rather the colors in the light within and around them. She lived in a universe of varying shades of illumination and her passion was to capture them.

  Will’s father commented that he did not ever remember seeing Will sit still for so long as when Will posed for Emily by the lake. When Emily gave Will the watercolor portrait he told her that the radiating color made him look some how courageous and that the wondrous waterscape could have been some far off sea and not Willow Lake at all.

  Emily stayed up late with Will as he tended the kiln. She told him of her plans to collect sunrises from different places around the world. They spoke of Notre Dame and the Seine, the Pyramids and Sphinx, Crete and Knossos, and The Great Wall and The Forbidden City. Will wanted to go to all of the places where Bellen pottery had gone before them to gather sunrises as well. Will and Emily together listed all of those places they would pass along the way so as not to miss the sunrises of the Mediterranean or Caribbean while their ships sailed in the early hours.

  William Bellen was a sweet, kind, generous boy and Emily Allen was falling in love. William had no need for a fall. Will’s heart belonged to Emily Allen the first time she stepped into the studio.

  Will and Emily never talked about September. When time came for Emily and Mary to go back to school, Will and Tom stayed up with them all night and then saw them off. There were no tears or long faces. The boys saw the girls off with the same upbeat energy and humor that had been with them all summer. The girl’s car was not even out of site when the boys put their hands on their hips and looked at each other. Will scratched his head. Emily and Mary were both feeling the same way. All four of them already feared the absence of each other’s company.

  Emily and Mary wrote the boys often telling them about the classes they were taking, the activities they were involved in, and campus gossip that really meant nothing to anyone in Willow Lake. Occasionally Emily sent Will sketches of the world around her and he would pin the puppies, hippies, and university buildings on the wall. Emily even sent a sketch of Mary once. Will gave the portrait to Tom. Tom bought the beer that night.

  Will and Tom were not big on writing so they decided to climb into Tom’s car to go see the girls. The girl’s parents allowed them to live in a small off campus bungalow their senior year. Emily made buttered noodles and bread - the bread burnt - and Mary made chicken. Will and Tom bought the biggest bottle of cheap red wine they could get. Friday night was a feast and Saturday was a headache. Will and Tom had never been to the university before so the girls said they would give them a tour of the campus, which never happened. None of them left the bungalow until Sunday when the time came to drive back to the lake.

  Tom’s car turned out to be not very dependable. Returning back home to Willow Lake the car broke down and would not run again. This did not deter Will and Tom. They made their next few visits to see the girls by hitching to the university until Tom’s father took pity on them. Tom’s father had said that he appreciated the boy’s determination yet there would be no benefit to anyone if they were found frozen at the side of the road. The boys themselves had thought that would happen on more than one occasion. Tom’s father lent them his car every other weekend to get them through the coldest months.

  The year could not go by fast enough for Will. When the weather got warmer, Will started hitching again so that he could see Emily as often as he could. Emily missed a few classes yet still graduated in May without her parents being the wiser. Then Emily and Mary went back to the lake for another amazing summer.

  The four easily fell back into the routine of boating, swimming, late night bonfires, shared six packs of beer and steaks from the IGA. Will and Emily worked side by side each day and Tom and Mary spent their time together at Mary’s cabin.

  In the fall, Will took on some shifts at the IGA and Tom added some shifts to his normal schedule. The girls wondered why the boys were spending so much time working rather than spending the precious little summer that was left with them. The boys told them that they were trying to scrape together the money for a car so that they would not have to hitch the extra distance this winter to see girls in the city. The city was much farther than the university.

  What Will and Tom did not know is that the girls were going to surprise them by staying at the cabin through the winter. They had fulfilled their obligation of finishing school and had bargained with their parents for a year off before starting their next endeavors.

  The boys had a surprise for Emily and Mary all of there own, they were not saving up for a car. At a late night bonfire at the end of August, under a full moon, the boys executed their plan. They had borrowed two canoes for a morning fishing trip. After a full fireside meal, they asked the girls if they wanted to go canoeing. Each took a girl in their canoe and they paddled out together onto the lake. The lake was bright as daylight. The girls suspected nothing when the boys made an excuse for each canoe to go a separate way. The boys had done well to hold their ardor and let the evening do their talking. In the middle of Willow Lake with blankets wrapped around them and moonlight shining down, Will proposed to Emily and Tom proposed to Mary. To the relief of the young men, both of the girls said yes.

  Tom Anderson and Mary Allen were married and moved into the cabin until a house could be built some years later. William Bellen and Emily Allen were married and moved into his father’s family home.

  Will and Emily loved the western shore and every morning the couple would have their morning coffee in front of the big bay window overlooking the lake, warmed by the fuchsia, tangerine, and lilac hues that escorted the rays of the sun.

  The next few years the two were happy alone with each other, and with Will’s father. The children were neither planned nor unplanned. They had wanted children and let fate happen. Michael, Will’s protégé to carry on the Bellen craft, came first followed a bit later by his sister Abby, every way was the shadow of her mother. Where Michael shared his father’s cool demeanor, Abby’s electricity filled the room like her mother.

  As a girl Abby would wake each morning and patter out of her room to find her father in his chair reading the daily paper and her mother at the table with her watercolors and brushes, often trying to capture the hues of the morning sky. The sunrise was to Emily what Mont Sainte-Victoire was to Cezanne. Abby’s mother would set everything aside to greet her daughter and pour her juice. Emily and Abby would then discuss their day’s agendas, decipher a dream Abby had the night before, or go over homework to be turned in that day. At s
ome point Michael would roll out of bed and sleepily join the group. Will intermittently chimed in to report a news story he found interesting or outrageous, usually having to do with the local community or politicians. Will considered both ‘backwards’. Then he would go to the stove and start to prepare the morning feast of eggs, potatoes, bacon, and on weekend’s stacks of pancakes.

  Breakfast was the Bellen family’s time together. Young families lead busy lives and the Bellen family was no different, rising early because they would rarely convene again as a family until the following morning.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 13

  The lakeside trees diminished as the rocky shoreline crept up to the road around the last bend to South Point. There were three spots on the lake where Willow Lake road ran next to the shore, in the village, Peters beach, and at the rocks at South Point. Now out of the shade of the trees the winter sunlight shown on Abby as she drove her father’s truck. To her left nestled in the trees across the rocky shore lined cove Abby could see the deck of the South Point Inn. Perched on the hill above her, ever watching the lake as in her childhood, Abby could see the Johansson house. At the end of the bend, the blue pickup turned right onto Johansson drive and then ventured away from the lake up and around the hill.

  From the lake the house appeared brilliant white against the snow, up close the paint was chipped and faded in many spots, revealing stripped patches of black and grey wood siding beneath. Having been untended for years, unremembered stalks of tall grasses and clovers, brown and withered, poked out through the snow around the base of the house and the yard. By the side of the house, the doors of the three-bay garage were open. Two bays were filled with lumber, large sheets of compressed wood, and stacked in the back with what Abby thought might be drywall and hardwood flooring. A large table saw stood in the third bay surrounded by sawdust and wood chips. When Abby stepped down from the pickup truck she could smell the fresh cut of the sawdust mixed with the oil of the saw and leading from the bay into the side door of the three-story house she could see the trail of wooden dust. Coming from somewhere inside the large house Abby could hear saws and the rhythmic stomp of a hammer so she headed toward the side door.