Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

  My plea yields three books: Murder on the Orient Express, The Taming of Nurse Conway, and a childhood favourite, On the Banks of Plum Creek, the latter being the hands-down winner. A wide-toothed pink comb is offered for free.

  Keeping my weary cells animated from sunrise to sunset edges me precariously close to collapse. In preparation for changing trains, I wash, wrestle my detangled hair into a braid, return books, gather my remaining belongings, while adding up the remaining journey—two hours between trains. Barring cows on the tracks, four to Sydney. And if I’m lucky and hook up with a ride, an hour or so to Pleasant Cove, or all night in the train station if I don’t.

  Jasper, what if Jake’s been lured away by an angelfish?

  Fiddlers do attract groupers.

  Don’t think I could survive that coming apart.

  The seat back accepts the heaviness of my head, but the worrying-weight remains. William walks through the car. “Truro, next stop. Next stop, Truro.”

  “You on the Saturday overnight to Montreal, William?”

  “Depends on what the walrus clan hears needs doing. Sweet dreams ’til then.”

  Maritime cold skitters in with the opening of the doors and—after seven soul-murdering months—I catch the warmth of Jake’s gentle smile. Without touching a step I’m in his arms.

  “I’ve got you, love. I’ve got you.”

  The platform empties and I’m still clinging like a koala to the last eucalyptus on Earth.

  “Let’s get you warm.”

  I gather him—coat, hair, flesh—closer, closer more. “Don’t let go.” The air stirs as the train pulls out. Hope floats as silence fills the space it occupied.

  “Here, put this on.” He navigates me into Nia’s parka.

  “I told Ellis not to call.”

  His arm remains firm as he moves me along. “He found your wallet and stuff on the floor of his car and was worried.” He opens the door to the aunties’ truck.

  I hop up, nabbing his coat before he can escape. His lips are the best thing I’ve known. The neediness in my kiss draws him in after me, grabbing the handle and locking the door in one blind movement. He slides in as I perch on his lap. Waiting is not a concept that exists on this frigid March night. The single light in the parking lot makes the fogged windows luminesce. We kiss, and kiss, then kiss better and longer and sweeter. I tug, unbuckle, unzip, and bring him next to me under my hoisted skirt.

  “Miss Appleton, where’re your knickers?”

  “Zajac. Ari Joy Zajac.” The salt on his neck stings my lips. “In my hat.”

  His hands unearth the skin at my waist. “Your hat?”

  “I washed them on the train and they were too damp to put back on. If you’d met me in Sydney, I’d have been a proper lady.”

  He soft bites my ear. “Oh, geezus, I’m glad I met you here.”

  It’s not our first romp in the aunties’ truck, but this time I’m transported to a place where everything is forgotten. Urgency rockets me into a burst of stars and a spiralling back to Earth. I hold fast as our breathing calms.

  I’d fall asleep for a long deep while if my ass wasn’t cramping. Before moving apart, I take in his good face. “Tell me there’s another long slow forgetting when we get home.”

  “I’m yours for the rest of the week.”

  “I’ll believe that when I live it, Jake Tupper.” I dismount like a wounded flounder. “Where’s the nourishment?”

  “What makes you think there is any?”

  I mimic Mary, “Now, take this and make sure you get some decent food into her. She was down to skin and dust last time we saw her.”

  Jake zips, buttons, buckles, and opens the door; he nabs the small blue cooler from the back and hoists it in. “Mary says sandwich before cookies.”

  A whole cookie is already in my mouth. “Don’t tell.”

  “Buoy yourself with as much sugar as you need.” He slides in and starts the truck.

  “Thank you for coming to get me. I was down to my never-lasting nerve.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Later. You know M&N are going to be poking at the horror to see what gems can be excavated.” I pick at a savoury bun. “Talk to me about anything good that’s washed up on our shore.”

  “Found our boat. A forty-five-foot Cape Islander. The owner thought it was ready for junking, but Huey says she’s got fine bones. I’m afraid working on it has kinda slowed things on the house.”

  “No matter. If the house isn’t ready when we are, we’ll sleep in the boat. What will she be called?”

  “She’ll tell us when time comes.”

  I swallow hard against the ache for the ones that will never again chart dreams. “How’re Huey and the Missus?”

  “Went to Halifax to see a specialist about her arthritis. Would’ve thought she’d been on a holiday. Talked for days about a lunch out and a movie after.”

  “Who watched the fosters?”

  “Sadie came and lent a hand. Wasn’t much that needed doing. They’re all in school except for Kylie and Carter.”

  “How many fosters do you figure they’ve had?”

  “Hundred, more maybe.”

  “They ever send any back?”

  “Most just went home after a parent’s stint in prison or rehab. There were a few they couldn’t manage. Had to think of the safety of the others. Danny was set to be sent back for setting fires, but when the leukemia was diagnosed, they just couldn’t.”

  I know it was Jake that wouldn’t have it. Jake who watched over Danny night and day. “You want your own kids, Jake?”

  “Whoa, thought you were leaving the tough talk.”

  “Just need to open the box a little on this.”

  “Do you want kids?”

  “Oh, sure, throw it back because you’re too chicken to say what might not be my answer.”

  “Right, I am. So, do you?”

  “Whenever I see Jennah with her kids or Jacquie with Arielle, I think, yeah, us Appletons have potential and I want a tribe. But after this mess, worrying my dad was—”

  “But he wasn’t.”

  “Did Ellis spill the whole drama?”

  “Mina knows how much Mary worries. She calls regular with updates.”

  “You gotta wonder why the universe didn’t give Mina and Ellis a quiverful of kids.” I search his profile trying to read his take on things. “Is it okay with you that I don’t know?”

  “Right now, just gathering up some throwaways seems right.”

  I pour lukewarm tea into the thermos lid. “Did you know male seahorses are the ones who give birth?”

  “Aye. We can do things different from the rest of the world. We’ll figure it as we go.”

  “What if the world went to war? Would you go?”

  “To protect you, I would.”

  “Would you go to Vietnam?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.” Jake is usually so non-definitive that his emphatic no has a spectacular safeness to it. He’d die for me, but he wouldn’t kill.

  “Sing me home.” I settle my weary self by his side and he sings one of his made-up songs that he spins for the kids. Seahorses float on hum-diddle-dee-heys, while starfish weave through lay-lura-lura-oh-lay-lura-lie. Now and then, his cheek connects with my head-top, spilling his niceness through my hair.

  The familiar music of tires on gravel tells my half-asleep self that I’m home. It’s long past midnight, but the aunties spring through the yellow door and gather me up.

  Longings in me queue like thirsty children at a water fountain. I want dog kisses. Given. I want hugs without questions. Received. The rest of my wishes are filled one by two. An Epsom soak in the claw-footed tub. Jake’s fiddle tunes slipping into the bathroom along with the fragrance of wood smoke. My flannel robe against soap-sweet skin. My co
balt-blue mug filled with honey-camomile tea. Aunt Mary’s scones, warm and buttered. A tucking beneath sundried sheets and a hand opening on my cheek telling me, “You’re our girl and nothing that happened was ever your fault.” Jake, standing quiet as M&N head to bed. A moonlit glimpse of his nakedness before he slips under the sheets, snugging chest to back until the distant foghorn guides me to rare dreamless sleep.

  Late morning sun splashes branch patterns across the featherbed. The dogs scratch at the door and Jake nabs me before I can move. “Please, not yet.”

  “Have to pee. Keep my spot warm.” I stretch like a charley-horsed giraffe, slip on my ratty robe, and limp toward a glorious week at home.

  M&N are head-to-head over the kitchen island. Mary looks up, offering a weak smile. Nia gnaws her cheek from the inside.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We didn’t want to say anything last night, but Ari, that awful bruise.”

  “What bruise?”

  Nia sighs. “Don’t. This is upsetting enough.”

  I go into the bathroom and take a gander at my arse in the full-length mirror. “Holy guacamole.” My right butt cheek looks like a child’s painting of squashed avocados. I return to the kitchen. “Sorry I scared you. I fell skiing.”

  “No one hit you?”

  “Yeah, a mountain.”

  “You’re not eating right.” Mary slams the cupboard door. “There’s no way you should bruise like that.”

  “I landed on a ridge of ice and torpedoed down washboarded snow.” Mary comes at me with a dose of castor oil. I open and shudder it down. “Life in crapdom has been shit-free sailing. The only thing the Dick has hit me with is bad breath.”

  Jake emerges, dressed in low jeans and disappointment. Mary wags her egg flipper at him. “Did you see her rear end?”

  “Uh . . .” He looks to me for the right answer. “No?”

  I catch the faint outline of a K on my hand. “Shoot.”

  He tugs his T-shirt over his head. “Uh . . . maybe?”

  I pull out a stool and gingerly sit. “William Walrus told me about something. Kissgui? Or kisugi?”

  “Kintsugi?” Mary asks.

  “Yeah. What is it?”

  She plunks a lumberjack’s breakfast in front of me, drags a chair to the shelf, and retrieves a graceful red bowl, veined with gold. “It’s the Japanese art of mending broken pottery by using gold to fill the cracks.” She turns it in her hand. “Making damaged, broken things more valuable than perfect ones.”

  “Did you make that?”

  “I did.”

  “Can the technique be applied to people?”

  “Kintsugi in any medium requires patience and an artist at peace.” Mary heaps a plate for Jake. “Get a few bites down, then we’ll walk and talk.”

  * * *

  Helping with chores is what I should be doing, instead I circle atop the stone wall, trying to step over past fears to future hopes. The foundation for Jake’s and my house is laid. It will be a big house for big dreams.

  Huey emerges from the treeline like a great oak found its legs. “Hey, dolly.” He bear-hugs me off the wall. “Can we walks for a bit? There’s something I thinks has to be known, just betweens us.”

  “Jake said the Missus went for tests. Please don’t tell me she’s sick.”

  “Everyone’s right fine.” We follow the trail down to the shore. “It’s a long ago happening about our boy lost to the sea.”

  “Sadie told me he drowned.”

  “He did and what needs knowing is this: it was me who lost him.”

  “You?”

  Huey’s head nods heavy. “I was full up on the drink. Details don’t matter none, the core of it is I wasn’t watchin’. I knows some of the weight in your belly right now.”

  “Is there ever real peace after?”

  “I say there can be, but it’s a slippery bugger to get a hold of.”

  “How did you?”

  “Just kept moving in hopes of it.”

  “Jillianne kinda said the same thing.”

  His right hand sits light on my left shoulder. “And in the moving, I just keeps meetin’ all these throwaways.” We stop, taking in the size of the ocean. “The crack in me’s always there, but it’s crammed full with these kids.”

  Kintsugi.

  * * *

  Whales make music. Familiar like flutes, but singularly unlike anything known. Skyfish has a call, heard most clearly in midnight hours, it’s earth music, clay notes, with the power to lure me from a sleepy tangle with Jake to the gallery.

  I poke the coals in the wood stove. Kindling catches and I add a log. I choose a bowl from the rack, salt-glazed, cream and black, put it in a bag, lift and drop. I have glue, likely not the right glue for this, but putting something back together feels necessary, urgent.

  I’m sorting pieces when Mary pads in, wearing flannel bottoms and a woolly sweater. “Not glue. Flour paste.”

  “That’ll hold it?”

  “With some lacquer mixed in.”

  “Is the gold added to the paste?”

  “No. Several finicky steps before we get to that.”

  We reassemble, without introspection, retrospection, or extrospection. We just puzzle broken bits together. Mary’s hair is more a cascade of waves than spirals, nose dusted with freckles. In this pale light she looks more like twenty-eight than forty-eight.

  Long past sunrise, Jake and Nia arrive with coffee and muffins, looking delightfully miffed at our shenanigans. Jake assesses the pieced-together pot. “You, girl, are in charge of placing the stone for our fireplace.”

  “It’s going in the centre, floor to ceiling, opening both to the kitchen and the great room.”

  “How’s that safe with kids runnin’ around?” Jake scolds more than asks.

  “Hmm. You’re right. How about we just don’t put up any walls inside.”

  He sits at the bench, sketching what could be. I let go of what was—a little.

  Twenty-Five

  I try to keep hold of my Pleasant Cove Zen but it slips away like maritime fog. Not even Jennah’s designer hand-me-down, a Mondrian-inspired minidress, can cover the Appleton taint. In my absence, rumours have ulcerated over and around facts released by the police. Stories like Byron was framed to cover up murder by a cop’s daughter.

  I leave school before the dismissal bell stops echoing in the halls. Would’ve stayed for volleyball. Smashing would be therapeutic, but teammates followed Cassie into her festering anger. When Coach Palmer found xeroxed pictures of me taped to every ball with the caption, “Smash her. Spike her,” she called the season a loss.

  I cross the field, passing Matt’s empty spot on the path. Since I’m Mikey-free for a few hours, my intent is to find Edjo, make a purchase, then zone out in the nest. Before my resolve syncs with my spirit, I find myself approaching the building where Natasha was strangled and stuffed. I stop short, absorbing that the unkempt man sitting on the saltbox out front is Mr. Koshkin.

  He looks up, eyes narrowing. “You,” spitting from his mouth like he’s expelling rancid meat. “Do not expect a thank-you.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Killing that animal was justice owed me, the only thing that could bring me peace.”

  I plunk on the concrete, back against a splintery pole. “Trust me, there’s no peacefulness in what follows. Besides, you have to take your beef up with the walrus clan.”

  “What?”

  “Apparently when murder on land is afoot, their flippers don’t work so well so they get up to mischief with girls like me.”

  “Natasha said you were . . .”

  “Weird? Crazy?”

  “Magical was the word she chose.” All his softness has disappeared into acute edges and needled whiskers. “What is it you want?”

  “Not sure. Jas
per pushed me here.”

  “She told me, too, about this Jasper.”

  “She was so open to delight and possibility, wasn’t she?”

  “Why are you here?”

  I shrug. “To blow this awful place up? To tell Natasha that school completely sucks without her?”

  “Life is unbearable without her.” His eyes slip from my face, to hand, to boot before settling on a desiccated worm. “Being with her is all I want.”

  “Major bummer for Alex and Joey.”

  “Perhaps they’d be better off without my blackness surrounding them.”

  “Not for a minute.”

  “What do you know of any of this?”

  “My father offed himself.”

  His head lifts. “Natasha said your father died of a heart attack.”

  “That was Len, my step-papa. My DNA dad blew his head off.”

  “He . . . Why?”

  “A universe of reasons that all boiled down to one reality: he was a selfish coward.”

  “Better he is dead then.”

  “For him, yeah. For his girls? We were left knowing he didn’t care enough about us to even try to fix the awful mess he’d made.”

  “Some messes cannot be fixed. This will never go. This pain will never go.”

  “My Uncle Iggy said it never gets smaller, you just get more muscled in carrying it.”

  “And what does he know of any of this?”

  “He lost his two boys, both his legs, and his wife during the war. He stuck around thinking one day a kid like me might need him.”

  “I am of no use like that. When . . .” His head sags. “When the boys laugh, I want to crush it out of them.”

  “I felt like that after Len died. Music, joy, a spark of happiness is like a punch, isn’t it?” I pull my knees against the ache in my middle.

  His head nods. “Being with her is all that matters.”

  “No judgment intended, but that perspective is utter crap. What if all the afterlife hype is a load of hooey and there’s no big reunion waiting?”