Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

  “You don’t believe in heaven?”

  “I try, I do, but I think the odds that Natasha’s spirit is here are ten to one over a mythical kingdom in the netherworld. And if there is another side, you won’t get the welcome you’re hoping for. Imagine, just for a second, showing up at the pearly gates and telling Nat you bailed on Alex and Joey. She’d slug you.”

  He snorts bitterness. “I know I cannot act on my despair, but . . .”

  “Doesn’t it have to be acted on? I mean otherwise you’re just stuck in it.”

  “Tomorrow the sun will rise and I will have to face again she’s gone.”

  I stand. “Sun rises in the east. My friends, Huey and the Missus, have fathoms of facing know how.” He accepts a hand up. “You should go there. By the ocean, sound is swallowed by the waves. The boys can laugh. You can roar. Your missus can weep. All as much as you need.”

  A sour laugh escapes. “Strange you say this. Running is the only thing I can imagine right now. But the boys have missed much school. I’ve not worked since—”

  “You making a fortune sitting here? The seahorse tells me that it’s the best tact right now.”

  His steps become less stiff as we walk. “Why a seahorse?”

  “Because it finds balance when it seems impossible.”

  “Natasha said you gave her the spirit of a dog.”

  “Not just any dog, a golden retriever. You have to know how much I love my dog to know how special that is.”

  We walk, block upon block, in silence. At a crosswalk he asks, “May I show you something?”

  “Okay?” As we turn down his street, I steel myself for gut-ripping sadness: Nat’s dream wedding planning book, her hope chest filled with porcelain teacups . . .

  We enter the yard and go into his workshop. A bucket is half-full of buttons, ordinary buttons. Mr. Koshkin picks up lengths of buttons woven together with wire. “She was making something. I can’t see what it was. Can you?”

  “Maybe. I’ll consult the clans while you’re away.”

  Twenty-Six

  Stretching out my long bones is a challenge in the boys’ closet, but it’s the safest spot for me to sleep and the vent on the floor gives my ear a line to the bowels of crapdom. I keep a pen handy to jot down names, dates, plots . . . Cigarettes coming from an RCMP dump are bringing in a tidy sum, but moving drugs across the lake is the real money-maker. My ears perk when talk turns to my eighteenth birthday next year. O’Toole says, “I got a doc in my pocket. He’ll sign anything.”

  The Dick says, “That Cornish broad from the school called me in for a chat. She thinks the kid’s a psycho dingbat.”

  Think it’s time we change my name from Jasper to Jesus, then talking to me will just make you a good Christian.

  That may be our only hope.

  While the Dudley Do-Wrongs continue to plot my demise, the door whines on its hinges. Yellow light leaks in from the hall. There is no mistaking the stink cocktail that is Devil Girl: stale baby powder, cum, and weed. Her arm snakes behind the hung sheet, searches the air, then slithers under my bra. My scream is more a high-pitched squeak. Todd snaps on the light and says, “Ronnie, what the fuck? Get your ass outta here.”

  Ronnie plunks on the floor, bearing startling resemblance to a panda in her white T-shirt and Tork’s black sweatshirt. “Ah, fuck off. I’m just asking Hari for a loan.” On Fridays, I smooth my escape from crapdom with groceries and a couple of bucks for the Zanzibar and she knows my bra is padded to cover expenses. “You gotta help me.”

  Bet she’s knocked up.

  Shhh.

  “Led Zep’s playing Montreal on Monday. Tork scored wheels. You gotta help us.”

  “I’m not giving you my hard-earned money.”

  “Come on, you little Jew. Sell ya my ring.” The ring. My nana’s emerald diamond heirloom. The only Appleton remnant left. Given to me by Nana on her dying bed. Snatched by Mum and gifted to Ronnie on her sour sixteen. “Just five hundred.”

  “That piece of crap? It’s just hunks of glass. I’ll give you ten bucks.”

  Ronnie tugs it off her baby finger. “Three hundred.”

  “Fifty, tops.”

  “I can get a hundred at McTamney’s.”

  If she ever was awake during business hours, she’d find she could get ten times that at the pawn shop. “I’ve got ninety-seven. Take it or leave it.”

  “Sold.” She nabs the money, face sweetening as she scans the oceanside mural we’ve painted on the wall. “Hey, that’s real pretty. Remember when we went to that cottage, Toddie?”

  “Yeah. You were the only one who caught a fish.”

  “Tasted good, eh?” She navigates to a stand, like a toddler trying to find her legs. “Bye, losers. Zep calls.”

  The silence in the room hums after she goes. My hand closes around the ring, a thing I’m not sure I want anymore.

  Nana was nice. She made fudge and sang Buffalo Gals.

  She also made Daddy.

  Sleep hangs like an apple just out of reach.

  * * *

  Jennah arrives at seven thirty a.m. to drop off a travel activity bag for the Koshkin boys and an Adidas track suit for me and I wonder if any of the Appleton sisters ever really sleep. “I saw these at Eaton’s yesterday.” Out of all the stellar clothes Jennah has given me, this delights me most. “It’ll look so much nicer than the ratty things you wear for volleyball.”

  Last year, the Jarvis volleyball champs made the papers and Jennah had nothing sporty in her closet to cover up my bruises. I haven’t the heart to tell her that the season is cancelled. She ticks number four and five off her list of thirty things to accomplish today. She is a marvel of precisely ordered discord.

  Aaron tuned up the Koshkins’ station wagon. Sabina packed it with pillows and picnics. Now, Ellis gives Mr. Koshkin the key to their cottage near Trois-Rivières and we watch them down the road, astonished that the old Chevy is able to clear the asphalt under the weight of their grief.

  “You know, Ari, Joseph couldn’t’ve gotten behind the wheel and moved without this end. It’s a mercy they don’t have to endure a trial.”

  “Sabina gives me the same uplifting blather, but the sound of ByBillyBob’s head hitting the car is all I hear. I’m not who I was anymore.”

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Remember that poem you shared in grade nine? Be the unthinkable one. That’s who this can make you: more expansive, stronger than you ever were. You’re a lioneagle conquering evil.”

  “For frig sake, sir, ease up on the syrup.”

  “Yeah, made myself a little nauseated just now. Hey, I’ve got the grade nines starting on the diary assignment. How about you do it?”

  “I still keep one, but giving you an unedited slice of my life would begin with Devil Girl’s hand in my bra.”

  “Hmm. A tragedy? A comedy?”

  “Horror. Sheer horror. Anyway, the printed word is eluding me.”

  “Makes sense, in a way.”

  “How’s that?”

  “If you’re afraid that things really could be used against you in a court of law, I understand your psyche just spooling up thread that you can weave together later. But any way you spin it, your life’s a writer’s dream.”

  * * *

  I leave my gift from Jennah in my locker and nab my ratty sweats. It’s the beginning of track, and running feels like the only rational move left. I lap the class because I so badly want to escape. The Koshkins are likely east of Montreal by now.

  And we’re running in circles.

  Another five or ten times around the track beckons but Coach Palmer sidelines me with a flick of her clipboard. She chitters while I cool down. “Monday, I want to see you out for track.”

  It’s odd that a no-legged seahorse spins at the idea. “Maybe,” I say.

  A little ener
gy fills my pores as I shower, shorting out when I discover my gym and street clothes are gone, gone, gone. Former volleyball teammates nonchalantly preen and adjust their skirts. Can’t believe I fell victim to such unoriginal torture.

  Jasper tails up. You’re not a cornered dog. Lioneagle up, Ari Joy Zajac.

  The underwear they nabbed is clean and snazzy. Purple with white daisies, matching bra, not pathetically small or sumptuously big, but a respectable non-padded 34B. My jeans are scribbled with quotes, the kind that would do a thief some good. Let them hang them on a flagpole. I cinch my towel, release my curtain of hair, and go confidently in the direction of my locker. In the hall, as classes change, I step into my new track pants, zipping the jacket over my towel before skimming it out. I’m in a black Adidas skin from ankle to chin. I grab Jillianne’s advice, turn up the music in my head, slam into my boots, then jump, jump, jump, turning dervish circles down the hall. Gawkers part as I wah-wah-watusi myself to chemistry, then home.

  Todd delivers the weekend forecast while exiting the asylum. “I’m in Rockton ’til Tuesday. We’re out of bread, milk, and pretty much everything. And steer clear of the Dick.”

  “He get demoted?”

  “For fuck sure that’s coming but for now he’s got the clap. So, chances are your mum, O’Toole, Ronnie, and company have it, too.”

  Mikey asks, “Do I have clap?”

  “No. Only Dicks, pricks, and scuzzy chicks get it.”

  Todd hoists his pack over his shoulder. “Oh, and Laura’s bailing. Sorry, Mike.”

  Mikey shrugs his way up the stairs. “Don’t like that Delio, anyway.”

  “Delio?”

  “Her milkman.”

  “Let’s just make for Sabina’s right now.”

  One minute less and we could’ve made a clean get away. The Dick pulls up in the blue sedan, rolls down the window, and hands me a white carton. “Get two into your mother. I’ll be back in an hour. Tell her to be ready.”

  There’s a tower of cartons in the hall: Brexton Picnic sets, Sail pipe tobacco, Ocean Fresh sardines . . .

  What kind of a day netted this crap?

  Mum wobbles from the kitchen in bellbottoms a mariachi dancer would envy, a fur-trimmed pink sweater, and what could be a feather duster in her hair. There was a time when every man sucked in his gut when Mum entered a room. In spite of her loathing of me, there was a certain pride that Theresa Appleton was my mum. “Oh, Jory, have you seen my box?”

  I assess the box in my hand containing one hundred and forty-four penicillin tablets. “This one?”

  “No, my, my—” She motions with her hand. “My box.”

  “Your purse?” She nods, wide-eyed, like it’s what she’d said all along. Her eyes are still forget-me-not blue. “I’ll find it. First come take these.” She downs two pills. I give her a third because it makes her smile.

  O’Toole animates off the couch. “You got the cure there, sweet thing?”

  “Is putting pants on just too friggin’ hard for you?”

  “I’ll show you what’s hard.”

  Walked right into that one.

  “Ari,” Mikey calls from the front door. “Wendy’s here.”

  The disgrace of the craphouse assaults all the senses: clutter and carelessness everywhere. Foul mouths overriding the constant hiss of the TV. Banisters, live with bacteria from unwashed hands. Mum’s sickly sweet Shalimar masking stale smoke and vermin decomposing in the wall.

  I step onto the derelict porch. “What new slings and arrows?”

  “Just a sorry,” Wendy says. “Heard what happened after gym today.”

  “Everyone hates me.”

  “Cassie buys the whole frame-up thing. Your stepdad being a cop and all. She and Byron were . . . you know . . . doing it.”

  “I suspected.”

  “I’m so stupid.”

  I absently peel a scab of paint from the rail. “He played everyone.”

  “Not like me. I’m such an idiot. We . . . He . . .” Her head drops to her knees. “I can’t even say it.”

  “Nothing will shock me, guaranteed, and shit is better out than in. That way you can flush it.”

  “You promise you won’t ever tell?”

  “Word.”

  “We never even lip-kissed. All he wanted was for me to kiss his . . . his . . . thing. You can’t even imagine how awful it was.”

  “Yeah, I can.”

  “Has it happened to you?”

  “Yep.”

  “I cried. How pathetic is that?”

  “Me, too.” I don’t tell her that I was seven.

  “Worst is I loved him.” She searches the abandoned nest in the porch light. “I loved, really loved someone who could do what he did.”

  “You loved the story he made up.”

  “You know, it drove him crazy that you never paid him any mind.”

  “I bought his shiny story, too.” I study my over-long toes. “I steered clear because in my experience golden guys like him were only ever interested in Appleton tarts for a romp on the slutty side of the sheets.”

  “He was the rotten one, to the core. Detective Halpern thinks he did it because Nat said no. She dies because she was being good and I—”

  “You’re here and you’re the only one at school being decent with me, so give yourself a break.”

  “This changes everything forever, doesn’t it?”

  I see, for Wendy, Nat’s death is a tsunami. For me, it’s just another breaker crashing on my shore and I don’t know what that makes me. “My aunts say there’s creative energy in everything that happens.”

  “Nat’s dad gave me her bike. I could never ride it, but the stillness of it gives me the creeps. It would hurt him if I gave it back, wouldn’t it?”

  “Probably.”

  “Wish he’d just given me one of her buttons to hold onto.”

  “Ari. Ari!” Mikey’s hollering levitates me into the house. Mum is standing on the rug, forearm to nose, blood gushing.

  I back her into the chair and nab a towel from the sofa. “Mikey, get TP. Mum, tilt your head back.”

  Wendy says, “No. Head forward. Pinch her nose, here.” She snatches the TP from Mikey, twists a plug, and shoves it up Mum’s nostril. “Are you on blood thinners, Mrs. Appleton?”

  “No. She likely just had a snort of coke to get herself up for a big night.”

  “Wha—? Geez.”

  “You mastered your first aid badge at Girl Guides, didn’t you?”

  “Pathetic, eh.”

  “No, appreciated.” I keep the pressure on Mum’s nose and offer my own first aid. “You should go before the Dick gets back.”

  “Okay.” Her turn at the doorway is like a spent flower holding against a big rain. “I don’t know how to get through this.”

  “Can you scope out where we might get some buttons?”

  “What kind?”

  “Um . . . every kind and colour.”

  “How many?”

  “Lots. And bring Nat’s bike to the art room on Monday.”

  “Okay?”

  “And drop by Sabina’s tomorrow. I have a button for you.”

  “One of Nat’s?”

  “I found it for her birthday. She’d want you to have it.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Mikey tags along on my Sunday meet-up. Aaron absorbs the kid’s slump and drag. “Hey, buddy. Thought you were at your mom’s.”

  “Mikey made his own way from Laura’s to the Riverboat last night.”

  “What? That’s like two miles. You should’ve called me.”

  “Didn’t have money.” Mikey bites back his lip quiver. “Kira helped me find Ari.”

  Aaron asks, “You guys free for a while?”

  “Free as wing-clipped birds.”

&
nbsp; “Okay, Mikey, pick an adventure: mountain climbing, trailblazing—”

  “The ocean.”

  “Get your imagination in gear and we’ll go.”

  Aaron arms Mikey into the nook behind the seats. He’s as pale as porcelain and blue just under his surface and I wonder if broken kids really can be pieced together and veined with gold.

  As we drive east, Aaron asks, “Have you heard how Nat’s family are doing?”

  “Apparently her dad’s stuck to Huey like a new foster kid. Her mom spends her days with the Missus, and the boys have made fast friends and situated themselves into school.”

  “Where’re they staying?”

  “Cap Harmer gave them use of a rental cottage. The men laid in wood. Ladies Aid stocked the pantry. I know the rough seas can’t be changed, but maybe they’ll find some way to navigate.”

  Just past Oshawa, Aaron follows a spring rough road down to the lake. Mikey launches toward it, rocketing the shore while we saunter along. Aaron asks, “So, what happened?”

  “Laura’s creep of a boyfriend locked him out and she was too wasted to notice. Mikey knocked and knocked, cried and pleaded. One thirty, he comes shivering into the Riverboat, barefooted, in PJs. He’d pissed himself.”

  “Does the Dick know?”

  “Mikey begged me not to tell. He’d kill Laura. Friggin’ pathetic parentals. I’ve got to figure a way to get him to the Butters.”

  He pockets his hands. “I know it’s where you both belong, but I hate the thought of Toronto without you two.”

  “Don’t get your sails in a knot.” I link my arm with his. “Jasper says the winds will settle between this sou’wester and nor’easter before geography separates us.”

  “We are impossibly different, aren’t we.”

  “Impossible or not, the fact of it is we are, we just are.”

  “Are what?”

  “Connected.”

  “Jake doesn’t mind this . . . um . . . connection?”

  “Mind? He expects it. It’s a little exhausting how much he thinks he doesn’t deserve me.” I keep hold of his arm because I need to. “I mean, how twisted is this? I’m a murderer and he’s a saint. He tells me I’m clay and thinks himself dirt.”