Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

  He wags the little pad in a victory wave. “Just ’til things blow over.”

  * * *

  Ellis sits with me long past midnight as I paint quotes on totes in hopes that Iggy’s words will settle me some. “Can I talk to you, seahorse to turtle?”

  “Rochester’s all ears.”

  “The thing I remember most about my dad are his made-up adventure stories. Is that where my story-weaving comes from?”

  “That and your life happenings.”

  “Byron was a story inventor. And he, he shared my hodgy-podgy writing quirk.”

  “Not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “You know Jacquie had a baby by my dad. He’s out there. Who knows with who or where he landed. My niece, Arielle, could meet him one day, never knowing they’re half siblings.”

  “You’re suggesting your dad sired Byron?”

  “He screwed my sisters. Why not other pretty young girls? Byron’s last words were ‘our father.’ Maybe it wasn’t a prayer but confession.”

  “Did Byron look like your dad?”

  “Jennah burned all Daddy’s pictures. But I think he might’ve.”

  “Your dad in the army?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll have a photo on file. Put this worry to bed. Chances are a million to one, but I’ll look into it so you can at least get this horror from your head.”

  “Is there any way you can find out his mother’s name?”

  “It’s in Halpern’s file.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “You know Mina, always getting the perspective on things.”

  Twenty-Two

  Mikey tells me that most of a dragonfly’s head is an eye. They see just about everything. What Mikey sees is that I can’t sleep. Late at night, my door opens and he perches on my bed, comfy against a pillow. He knits, without light. There’s something calming about the tick, tick of the needles as he chitters out wisdom far beyond his years. “Did you know that there’re cracks in the arctic ice where whales can surface for breath? Without them they’d suffocate.” A few hours of sleep follow as he settles at my back, like a forcefield against nightmares.

  Mornings, I head downstairs to the windowless workroom. I should study for a science test and write a history paper but my biology nag, nag, nags. Byron’s age puts him between Jillianne and Jory. Daddy always wanted a boy.

  I pick up my paintbrush, stilling my imagination with painting quote totes for the boutique. My head lifts to Linda tapping on the open door. “Sabina said I could come down. You mind?”

  “Are you here to blather about my redeemability?”

  “No. I want to apologize.” She lights on a stool. “That remark I made about the parking spot. It was so arrogant to say it when your friend was missing.”

  “Don’t sweat it. Your faith is your faith and I can be a bitch.”

  “I think you’re irreverently wise. I get why Aaron treasures his connection to you.”

  “And you, I believe, are reverently kind. I get why Aaron’s heart and mind melt.”

  “Did he tell you we broke up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Just that he’s not ready to talk about it.”

  “I couldn’t find the words to tell him why I . . . he just needs to know what’s at the bottom of the ocean. His constant questions made me feel like I was drowning and my faith was suffocating to him.” She looks at me with big cat eyes. “Tell me you’ll take care of him.”

  “He takes care of me.”

  “Maybe so, but you connect with him on a spiritual plane that I never could.” She glides like silk from the stool to the door. “Um, would it offend you if I said I’ll remember you in my prayers?”

  “Any cosmic forces for good are welcome to have a go at me.”

  No sooner does the panther leave then Ellis stands at the door, his turtle muse postured like a trench-coated sleuth. “Before I give you anything, what will it prove if you find out Billy Smith was fathered by your dad?”

  “Was he?”

  “Don’t know, but what if he was? What will you twist that into meaning?”

  “That Appletons are rotten at their core?”

  “If that’s where you’re headed, then you better damn well be ready to declare each one of your beautiful sisters as bad seeds.”

  “I’ve always been odd one out, five golden delicious and one wormy, brown, barrel spoiler. I heard all the time, ‘The J’s are Trembley. Hariet is Appleton.’”

  “You are Ari Zajac.”

  “And who is she? I don’t know how else to be in a body that caused death without peeling off my skin and seeing what’s inside.”

  He hands me an envelope. “Let me, or Mina, do this with you.”

  Twenty-Three

  For six years, the Village has been a scene that fit the unfittable girl, the sister-searching girl, the tie-dye artsy girl. Now, Friday night at the Riverboat, I’m the freak who killed the boy who killed the girl.

  After closing, I dry a rack of cups. My boss pokes his head into the kitchen. “I’m heading out. Finish off the strudel while it’s fresh and grab a sandwich.”

  “I’ll eat.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah. Night, Bernie.”

  I navigate the dark alley to my nest. Do I want to know if this boy is an Appleton, Jasper?

  Huey says you can’t fix a boat until it’s stripped down and the rotten bits scraped out.

  Rubber Soul plays while I eat strudel and reread Jake’s sappy letters. Mid–sweet sentiment I drift to sleep.

  Sisssster. Byron’s hiss in my ear catapults me from bed like a python just snaked up my back. When morning leaks in like quicksilver, I unfold from the chair. My skin feels tight despite having dropped seven pounds. Where does that go? Are particles of me floating in the atmosphere?

  Making their way back to the ocean.

  The shower can’t reach the crawl under my skin. I layer clothes against the numbing ache in me: Len’s shirt, Jake’s sweater, Mikey’s hand-knit socks. I search my shelves for weed, none. In the lining of my backpack is Jillianne’s parting gift, the wax-paper fold of crushed shrooms. “Go confidently into this, little sis. It reset me to me. To me, without Daddy in me.” I’ve gone on a few acid trips with Jory, taken one all by myself. Hated every second of the chaos and distortion.

  Reset.

  A broken bone is reset. A watch. A timer. Who can reset DNA?

  I’m flabbergasted when I feel Jasper spinning. He’s the goody two-shoes in this pairing.

  I’m a goody one-tail. Shhhh-rooms. Let’s go there.

  I’m not the first person to mix this shit in Riverboat lemonade. I down it fast before really considering if I’m prepared for takeoff. I land in my downy chair, blurry around the edges.

  We’re good. Nothing bad can come in the nest.

  What if the bad’s in me, Jasper?

  As my chair shifts from solid floor to a boat on water, I wish I could reset time. Wish I’d just put on the kettle and picked up my book. My eyelid judders and my toes cramp. Terror seeps, like oil, through the floorboards. Everything I know, I no longer know. What is solid, defined . . . blurs, morphs. My stuffed Zodiac twitches like a foraging rat. My cells feel pulled outward, like static-charged hair. Panic, big panic rises with it.

  Music, guitar, quiet, a Bach sonata slips over my head, my arms, like honey spilling over the floor. The window opens and all my presents and absences clap their tiny sounds against the glass. Oh . . . look at the colours.

  A white shell unspirals into pearly hues. Red plates split into big red, poppy-rose-cherry-pomegranate red. Blue glass fractures light. Green vibrates. An orange pulses, opens, smiles. A prism splinters into rainbows. Len’s iridescent pot transmutes into scarlet, fuchsia, emerald, tu
rquoise, amethyst . . . There’s no fear of it falling as it spins. It’s empty. Fill it. You fill it.

  Fans of colour trail the movement of my hand. Air is silver and fluid, puddling on my palm before slipping through my fingers. The ocean licks at my toes, pulls me under. I breathe. My eyes close as sun through leaded glass paints me in sunset-coloured waves.

  I wake to the smell of spring. My cheek rests on my braided rug and I see legs, many sturdy legs holding chairs, the table, bed, bookshelf, coat rack, my easel . . . and I see Jasper marooned on his back.

  My tail was a viper swallowing me. Never, ever listen to me again if I suggest a trip.

  I find my land legs, drink water, pee, brush my teeth, braid my hair, make French toast, eat apple slices with sharp cheddar. Sitting at the counter, I notice the changed places of several totems. Mum’s and Daddy’s are outside hanging from the window bars. Do you remember doing that?

  No. We could’ve gone tits over tail off the fire escape.

  Should I leave them outside?

  For now. Maybe forever.

  I saw Len. He said that my life was an empty pot for me to fill. I notice my stuffed dog atop the fridge and a scrawling apology stuck to the door. There is a sorry in me shaped like a star. A room heavy with stars. For brother, sister rats, especially you without a tail.

  What’s up with that?

  Remembering is not like a disappearing dream. It’s as clear and fragmented as the prism suspended in my window. You can’t murder as many rodents as we have without there being a day of reckoning.

  Let’s not ever do this again.

  Agreed. Think it’s in our best interest that we not squander any brain cells. A toilet flushes somewhere below and water whooshes inside the walls. Sounds transmute into a visual crack. Hidden things: wires, pipes, vents become seen, luminescent, and alive. I blink away the after-tremor. Blink again, opening to quiet, calm shadows. Jasper?

  Mm-hmm.

  Where’d the fear go? I can’t remember a time when I’ve felt its absence like this.

  Out the window. Just don’t go filling up that space with guilt.

  Oh, that’s still there. Like a festering boil.

  Twenty-Four

  My old teacher, Belle Standish, comes to the boutique looking for a dress. She buys two and asks, “And do you have a quote to add to the bargain?”

  Considering how she sheltered me through many a storm, a little buoyancy is only fair. “Um . . . ‘The wound is the place where light enters you.’”

  “Rumi. Excellent choice. It’s so mild out. Fancy walking with me a bit?” She chitters about her plans for March break, then asks, “How are you, really?”

  “Fragmented.”

  “I’m here for you. Don’t ever forget that.” She stumbles around reluctant words. “Ari, I don’t want to take away from your support, but, as Aaron’s mentor and as his friend, I feel it necessary to say something.”

  “What’ve I done now?”

  “Do you remember seeing Mr. Thornton the day of that boy’s accident?”

  George Thornton was my science teacher. He was on the accusing side when years ago improperness between Aaron and me was suggested by a clutch of bitchy girls. “No.”

  “He was at St. Mike’s with his wife. She was in emerg with gallstones. He saw you brought in with blood, blood all over your, your lap. Shortly after, he saw Aaron rushing in.”

  “Aaron wasn’t there.”

  “You didn’t see him. He went when he got news of everything.”

  My feet feel booted in concrete as I step, step, step.

  “Next day at school, Thornton worded things in a way that could leave people thinking you might’ve had a, a miscarriage.”

  “But, it was in all the papers what happened.”

  “I tried to set things straight, but gossip takes on a life. He added tidbits about Linda breaking up with Aaron. How often he sees you two together. All innuendo, but—people talk and some thrive on hurting people and George Thornton wants nothing more than to see Aaron fall flat.”

  “Why?”

  “Jealousy. Inherent sourness.” She squeezes my hand without a trace of meanness. “Ari, this is a dangerous game when it comes to Aaron’s career. He’s such a gifted teacher. Once he finishes his master’s, he’s going to skyrocket up the ladder, but not if these kind of rumours keep arising.”

  “We’re just friends. You were my teacher. Ellis and Mina are my teachers. You’re all like my family.”

  “I’m a woman and Mina and Ellis are a couple. It’s different for a single man.”

  * * *

  I’m ironing stock when Aaron brings Mikey back. I keep my back turned as he talks. “Did Mikey tell you my uncle’s springing for a trip to Mexico?”

  I nod.

  “I fly out Thursday night, so I’ll see you after the break. Ari? You okay?”

  “The train for okay left weeks ago.”

  He navigates around to take in my face.

  I turn a cuff and press, focusing on the steam puffing from the iron. “Remember when you said I was more worth than trouble?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nice sentiment. But nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m toxic waste. Please just stay away from me.”

  “Belle share Thornton’s trash with you?”

  “I’m not messing up your job. We have to stop pretending what we have is okay.”

  He folds his arms. Relaxes against the wall. “Mess it up. I don’t care.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It’s truer than I can say.”

  My head wobbles, no.

  “When my dad went overseas, my mom was pregnant with me.”

  “Still don’t get Amish going to war.”

  “Mennonite, and Dad was a medic. The point here is Mom said she knew I was a boy and I’d be my dad’s legacy if anything happened. All my life I was AJ, Aaron Junior, and there was never any discussion about the path my life would take. All I dreamt about was joining the coast guard or merchant marines.” His head cocks, asking for my eyes. “If you decide to end us because it’s what you need, okay, but don’t you dare do it to protect a dream that isn’t even mine.”

  “What is your dream?”

  “Not sure. Stretching beyond travelling and immersing myself in another culture gets my cells racing.” His smile is splashy and big. “And until I figure it out, watching Thornton make an ass of himself is entertaining.”

  “No, he’s a ferret. And his wife’s a badger. I can’t imagine what domestic life is like for them.”

  He holds my eyes with his. “I don’t care what it’s like for them. Just tell me we’re okay.”

  “I can’t. Not until I sort out the terror that I’m Typhoid Ari contaminating everything I touch.”

  * * *

  I have a lie ready, but the Dick signs a border-crossing letter without asking for a single detail and Mikey joins the Zajacs on a March break trek to Myrtle Beach. If I go to the nest, I’ll drown in sleep. At the craphouse, occupants pose an eeny-meeny-miny of snares. If I hurry, I can catch the overnight train to Montreal. Without preparation, I make for Union Station.

  As night settles in, so does the cold. I tent my legs up under my skirt, pull my arms into my sweater, and sleep the sleep of the perpetually rattled. Five thirty-five a.m., we pull into Central Station. It’s too early to contact anyone, so I sit on the hard benches and wait for something to open.

  At seven thirty, I scan food options, from Twinkies to toast, settling on tea and a toothbrush. At nine thirty, I navigate my way to an address in Griffintown. That I move with fluidity through the streets, the smells, the language seals the knowing that you never leave where you’ve come from. I climb the stairs to the apartment over the corner store and knock. “Bonjour. Hello?”

  A voice, close to the other side
of the door, asks, “Who is it?”

  “Um, Ari Appleton. I’m looking for Pauline O’Leary.”

  “What for?”

  “I just need to ask if she knew a man named Vincent Appleton.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  I slide my father’s army picture under the door. “Could you look please?”

  “Never seen him before.”

  “Are you sure? It’s really important.”

  She opens the door a crack and measures me up. “This about that boy?”

  “Yes. How—”

  “Police’ve been here. Please go. This has nothing to do with me.”

  “I just need to know if it has something to do with me. With my father.”

  “What’re you on about?”

  “It’s complicated. He looked like my dad.”

  The chain slides off and the door opens. “You knew him?”

  “Sort of.”

  I’ve grown to expect craphouse squalor when it comes to our kind of people. This flat is tranquil yet homey. “I haven’t been Pauline O’Leary for fourteen years. How’d you get this address?”

  “I . . . I stole a look at a file. No one else knows and I swear I won’t bother you again. I just need to find out who . . . if . . .”

  “Come, sit. I admit I’ve a few questions of my own.” She’s petite, neat, and doe-eyed, like Audrey Hepburn, like . . . Jillianne. I turn from her weighted eyes. Framed prints and photographs fill the space above the chintz sofa. Durer’s Parrot in Three Positions in a small gilt frame catches my eye. She says, “It’s all about perspective, isn’t it.”

  “You sound like my art teacher.”

  “They said this boy was good at drawing.”

  “Apparently. Are you artistic?”

  “Just an admirer. I’m a bookkeeper.”

  “Byr—he was really smart.”

  “You were friends?”

  “Not really. I’m just trying to unravel the mess so I can make sense of it.”