Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

  “Don’t know what help I can be.” My height and disorder feel absurd as I follow her into the kitchen. It’s bright and cluttered. An old pine sideboard is crammed with jars. Herb pots line the sill. Depression glass vases—amber, teal, and pink—are filled with pennies. “Like I told the police. Got pregnant when I was fifteen. My parents sent me off to that home. Didn’t even know it was a boy until the police came.” She puts on the kettle and warms a Brown Betty teapot like Grandma always did. “So, what’s this about your father?”

  “I grew up around here. He resembled what I remember of my dad.”

  “And you think what?”

  “My dad liked beautiful girls and he was kinda messed up.”

  “I had a summer romance with a sixteen-year-old camper from Maine.”

  Despite my shortcomings in math, I know my dad was nearing forty the year Byron was born. “Are . . . ?”

  “Am I sure? Without a hair of doubt, Charlie Turning was the father. He never knew.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Just a sweet boy who loved horses as much as me.”

  The space expands. Evidence of a family comes into focus: photos on the fridge, a calendar on the wall, a Pooh cookie jar that says, “My mummy is sweet as hunny.” “You have kids?”

  “Two girls, thirteen and eleven. They’re with my husband at the family sugarbush for the March break.” I feel myself shrinking from five-foot-ten to eight years old. “Come sit down.”

  “I’m sorry I barged into your life like this.”

  “It’s okay. Maybe a little welcomed. I haven’t been able to sleep since the police came. Who do you talk to about a thing like this?” She pours tea. “Did this boy hurt you?”

  “I hurt him.”

  “Oh, you—police told me what happened. Did you know the girl they say he . . . he . . . ?”

  “Yes.”

  She picks up the photo of my father. “He looked like this?”

  “Kinda.”

  She studies the handsome man in uniform. “I see my nose. Charlie’s smile. God, what did we create?”

  “He seemed special in a lot of ways, really creative.”

  “And without conscience.”

  I spin what I know to the light side. “The old lady he lived with said he was very kind to her. From what I’ve gathered, he lost his temper and made a terrible mistake.”

  Her exhale is heavier than lead. “Thank you. That helps.”

  “Do you know the people who adopted him?”

  “The nuns just said he’d gone to a wonderful family.” She absently sips the cooling tea. “If I’d known, I would’ve found a way to take him. It’s odd saying ‘him.’ All these years I imagined a girl, with a princess room, her own horse, beach holidays. My older sister tried to arrange an abortion for me, but my mom knew before I did that I was pregnant. She was so devout, she wouldn’t let that happen. She believed every life was a gift.” Delicate fingers rake through her cropped hair. “And now this. How do I say sorry? Make this right?”

  My brain tangles in the paradox, the crapshoot that makes us, us. “My aunt says all energy, positive and negative, makes art, if we let it.”

  “Maybe I’ll go help my in-laws make some maple sugar leaves for the shop. It’d be better than trying to add things up.”

  “I can tell you for sure that Natasha would appreciate you doing that.” Pain blooms behind my right eye and a worm wiggles in my peripheral vision. “I should be going.” I stand and she walks me to the door, shrugging a sigh as bewildered as mine.

  The stairs down to the street are narrow and the light at the bottom is sharp. She’s just a regular human, Jasper.

  Clay, we’re all just clay.

  But I can’t turn sense of it.

  Let’s make nonsense then. I want Mary’s Cornish pasties, feather pillows, and . . . Jake.

  I plunk on the planter outside Pauline O’Leary’s building. Just let me get this head calmed and we’ll go.

  “You know where a guy can get a decent cup of coffee around here?”

  Neck hairs shiver up as I lift my eyes to Ellis limned in sunlight. “Oh, for pity sake. Aren’t you supposed to be skittering down an Alp somewhere?”

  “Would be, but Mary called your aunt to check that you’d arrived safe. Dolores said you were going to Myrtle Beach with Sabina. So, Mary got in touch with Mina, they talked, and here I am.”

  “Didn’t mean to worry anyone. I was just trying to carve out some time to sort stuff out where no one was fretting over me.”

  His grip is solid as he encourages me to stand. “Where’s your coat?”

  “Made a mad dash for the train without thinking things through. How’d you know I was here?”

  “We knew you’d go looking sooner than later. Mary and Mina put two and two together.”

  “Sorry for wrecking your holiday.”

  He opens the door of his station wagon. “Find anything that helped?”

  “Definitely yes and absolutely no.”

  There is a lovely weight to the vehicle as he settles behind the wheel. “Where to? Jillianne’s?”

  Curling up and sleeping next to Jake is all I know to do. “Just drop me at the train.”

  He digs a wrapped sandwich from a paper bag, insists it into my hand. “How about keeping me company to Quebec City? You can catch the train from there.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself.” I force down tiny bites. “I’m fine.”

  “It’ll be a long cold week if I don’t come back with all the details.”

  “The short of it is Vincent Appleton didn’t father Byron-Billy-Bob or whoever the feck he is—was.”

  As the miles pass the long of the story is told and my headache eases.

  “You must be relieved.”

  “For as long as I can remember, I’ve believed evil was confined to the Vincent-Theresa vortex. That lady was just a regular human, who had a romp with a boy and obeyed her mom.”

  He eases his foot from the gas. “Look around.”

  Fingers of light reach though the mash of silvery clouds. Fields ebb and flow like a great white ocean. A horse runs as a playful yearling darts and weaves alongside. A truck unloads metal for a new barn roof. The air, still wintery cool, is laced with spring. I inhale. Ellis smells like soap and flannel. “Do you think evil is a choice or a cellular thing?”

  “I suspect people have certain predilections and life events shape them.”

  “I’ve always imagined Jacquie’s baby out in this world, being wanted and loved, growing into a great yellow bear like Jacquie. Now I’m afraid my dad’s genes have leaked into the world.”

  “Only thing you have any control over is what’s here in front of you.”

  “But I’m scared of what’s in me.”

  “You’re nothing like that BS.”

  “Oh, come on. I make up stories. My head wiring is freakish and I tell you I could bash O’Toole’s brains to pulp when he tortures Mikey.”

  “Defence of a child and strangling someone over not getting what you want are two different equations, even if the results are the same.”

  “How do I figure out the result of me without being able to add up my mum or dad?”

  “You can’t unravel another person, or account for all the variables. From what I remember from my psych classes, it’s more likely all the trauma after he was adopted that royally messed up Byron.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, the birth family honoured God. The nuns found him a nice family. Then the dad takes a header off a horse? If God sees the little sparrow fall, could He not see a honking Clydesdale heading off course? Especially after all the people involved tried so hard to be good?” I help myself to a cookie. “My dad’s enrapturement with the divine makes all
the God stuff devilish to me.”

  “Our earthly father is most often how we view a heavenly one.”

  “I’ve no shortage of persons providing heavenly perspectives. Are your parents as good as you?”

  “My parents are flawed, lovely, horrid, kind, distant, embracing people. And please don’t beatify me.”

  “To me, you are saint and saviour.”

  “Ari, I’m as cracked as the rest of humankind.”

  He catches the shake of my head.

  “Take the war. Your dad enlisted, didn’t he.”

  “Yeah.”

  He sacrifices the last cookie. “Me? I waited ’til I was called up, then manoeuvred myself into a position of safety. While my buddies were dying on the front, I was tucked behind a desk translating documents. I’m just your run of the mill, self-centred bastard.”

  “That’s hard to see from where I’m sitting.”

  “Surely you’ve had a peek from where Mina sits.”

  “She’s nuts about you, sir.”

  “For decades, every time she was full of hope for a baby, half of me was ecstatic, the other half was whining, ‘There goes trekking through India. So much for writing a novel . . .’ Then she’d get her period and I’d be filled with such grief that I could barely get out of bed.”

  “How’d you learn to move?”

  “Turtles are painfully honest guides. Rochester would whack me with his shell like a frying pan across the head and tell me to get over myself.”

  “That Dr. Cornish says hearing voices is a symptom of schizophrenia.”

  “Oh, Ari, you didn’t talk to her about Jasper, did you?”

  “I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid. No way I’m leaving a paper trail that the Dick can use against me in a committal when I turn eighteen. Half of Jarvis likely told her I was nuts.”

  “Who on this planet is normal? No one, that’s who.”

  “It does scare me. I mean, I hear Jasper’s chitter so clearly.”

  “That’s how I hear Rochester. Worry about scrambled voices in your head. That clear singular voice arising from our core is the sanest we ever hear. Most shut it up, drown it out, edit it down, twist it into lies, or are deaf to it altogether, but if we listen, it guides us through this wondrous, terrible life.” He half turns to the quiet smile on my face. “What’s Jasper whispering right now?”

  “That I’m more linked to you than my dad. To Mina than my mum.”

  “We call you our clay girl.”

  “Jasper tells me I’ll be at your sides when you set off on your adventure into the sky.” He squeezes my hand and my thoughts drift for a peaceful long while. “Um, sir, I’d never criticize an English teacher fluent in French but that sign said Quebec City.”

  “No train until tomorrow morning, but there’s a station a hop, skip, and ski jump from where we’re staying. I’ve a hankering to see how a seahorse fares on skis.”

  “Oh, you and I both know something wicked will that way come.” I squash Jasper’s excited little flips. “Besides, one doesn’t take on a Himalaya in workboots and a peasant skirt. And it’s March break. I’m certain there’s no room in the inn.”

  “We have a cabin and gear can be rented.”

  * * *

  Mina sweet-talks a sturdy Nordic type into loaning me her back-up ensemble. I look like an inflated roll of five-flavour Life Savers. I should be perched atop a variety store. Instead, I’m high in the Laurentians soaking in the vistas of sugared trees and frothed-up clouds floating above the St. Lawrence. “Just leave me up here.”

  Ellis lowers his goggles. “You’ll love it.”

  “Think I need more lessons on the kitty hill.”

  “It’s called a bunny hill.”

  “Not when you’re a scaredy cat.”

  “Stomach tight. Keep your knees bent.”

  Gravity pulls me along. The spray from Mina and Ellis catches the sun, filling the atmosphere with jewels. The “gentle” slope becomes less genial and I need rabbit, not bunny, skills. I tuck and suck, unsteadiness lessening as I settle into a groove that is as close to flying as I could ever imagine. Ten-year-olds whiz past. Mina is no doubt at the bottom. Ellis is fathoms ahead, but I am soaring. What a poetic name, the Beginner Hill.

  Where the trail opens, merging with others, the snow turns to glass. My ski hits a bump, sending me helter-skeltering down the hill.

  “Ari?” Ellis skies over to me. “You good?”

  “I’m changing my name.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Ari Joy Zajac.”

  Mina smiles down. “Transformational run?”

  “Spectacular.”

  Ellis fusses. “Can you stand?”

  “Think I left a chunk of my ass up there.” I ratchet up. Stretch out the dents. Bloody suit should come with a warning: material turns lioneagles into greased Bambis.

  Mina asks, “Ready to go again?”

  “Noooo, no, no. You go Jean-Claude Killy your day away. I’ll be by the fire.”

  * * *

  Before sunrise, Ellis drives me to the train. On the platform I say, “Thank you, for all of this. Skiing was kind of . . .”

  “Fun?”

  “Um, more poetic. I’m composing an ooohhhh-de to my gluteus maximus right now.”

  He smiles and snugs a “borrowed” granny-square throw from the cabin around my shoulders. “What were you thinking leaving home dressed like this?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You sure you have enough money?”

  I tuck my ticket in my bra. “I’m good.”

  The train wheezes into the dark station. “I’ll call Mary and let her know what train you’re on.”

  “No. I’m not having her navigate midnight roads to meet the train. I’ll have no trouble making my own way.”

  “Of that I’ve no doubt. See you back here. Sunday at nine.”

  “I’ve already imposed too much.”

  “We’re heading back then anyway. Don’t you want an extra day with Jake?”

  “So, Sunday. Nine sharp.”

  I haul my aching self up the steps, past sleepy passengers, and make my way to a seat.

  “Excuse me. You dropped these.”

  I turn as a man hands me one mitten and a tube of ChapStick. “Thanks.” I check my purse and see only the floor of the train. Shit, Jasper. I’ve come apart at the seams. My reflection in the window scares the beans out of me. The hat Mina nabbed from the lost and found is a hand-knit, purple-pink-lime creation with a pom-pom near big as my head. We have no book, no pencils . . . I tuck up my legs and nest in the jumbled colours of the throw. My wallet with my library card, my licence, and pictures of Zodiac. Oh, Jasper, the penny pouch from William is gone.

  * * *

  The window is cool against my cheek and the new day is a smudge of pink on the horizon. Pewter light seeps in through closed lids. My breathing syncs to the cha-cha-cha, cha-cha-cha of the train. I float as the miles move under me.

  A cloud eclipses the sun, and from the shadows, Byron snares my hair. His smile opens to a maw, swallowing me whole. Come with me. You need to see this—

  A hand pulls me to the surface. “Miss. Miss. Wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”

  I suck in air, whacking my head on the window as I fight like a netted trout.

  “I’ll get you a cup of tea, miss.”

  I sense thirty pairs of eyes on me and turn to the window. My reflected hair resembles a poodle après electric shock. I force the disgrace back under the hat and receive a cup of tea without looking up. “Thank you. Sorry about the fuss.”

  “No trouble, little miss.” William Walrus’s voice cuts through my shame. “Been waiting for you.”

  My eyes meet his. “You have?”

  “I need this.” He taps my forehead with a quick flick and
, like a magician conjures a quarter from a child’s ear, a lump of coal is in his hand. “The clan of walrus are sorry for the burden of it.”

  “Pardon?”

  “We walrus always know what’s what, but on land we’re not a folk that can easily do what needs doing. It’s not your fault. It wasn’t your doing. I swear on my whiskers.”

  “You know—you know what happened?”

  “I’ll be collecting a penny for it.”

  “Oh, I . . . I . . .”

  “It’ll turn up when you’re willing to release the weight of it.”

  “How can I?”

  “Because it wasn’t your doing. Just the universe using a brave seahorse to set things right.” He blows into his hand, opening it to a shiny piece of quartz veined with gold. “Finding the treasure in this is how we’re made whole. Old William knows.”

  “How, but, what?”

  “Kintsugi.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You’re a potter.” He opens my palm, pens a word, and places the pretty rock in my hand. “Find out.”

  A lady places the blanket on the seat beside me. “Sometimes I have horrid spider terrors.”

  I look at her well-lived face. “Did I make a lot of noise?”

  “Not to worry. There’s nothing like turning the skin inside out to get the old ticker going.”

  “Oh, good grief.”

  I really have to pee, but straightening my stiff frame will be another spectacle. I set the tea under the seat, focus on the lavatory door, and rachet myself up. The pom-pom on the hat brushes the ceiling and I feel like a giant weed.

  Jasper, I need a comb.

  We are combless but not without teeth.

  As I exit the loo, every eye skits up, then darts down. Even empty seats look embarrassed for me. There are hours before I switch trains and can escape this nightmare. I inhale. “Mes amis. Fellow travellers. Je suis désolé. My apologies for the irreverent caterwauling. I will try, with all my might, to remain awake for the rest of our journey together. I lost my book so if anyone has one, preferably sans murder and mayhem, that I could borrow it would be greatly appreciated. And five bucks to anyone willing to sell me a brush. Merci and mercy.”