Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

  “And I’m glad I have you. I came to invite you and Mikey to crash at our place.”

  “Mikey’s at Sabina’s. I’m Todd’s gopher until I get his room set up. Should be able to move him out on Saturday.”

  “Where’s O’Toole?”

  “Gone underground.”

  “Appropriate for a rat. So, a custody deal’s set?”

  I nod.

  “What can Ellis and I do to get you to Dalhousie?”

  “I’m going to fail chemistry and I’ll be lucky to scrape through math and I missed a big history test. If I don’t pass with a sixty-five, I’ll lose the scholarship.”

  Mina bolsters my sags. “I’ll work something out with your teachers. I’m sure they’d be willing to provide some assignments for bonus marks.”

  “It’s a good thing I can play ball because according to my paper records, I’m dumber than depleted dirt.”

  * * *

  Friday, I do something I can ill afford: skip school. It’s a universal disappointment to collapse the boxes and find peony wallpaper. I strip it off, unearthing Pepto-Bismol-coloured walls. I mix half gallons of white and blue paint and roll it on. Mauve?

  If you can’t say it’s gray, then just keep your snout shut.

  * * *

  Before sunrise Saturday, I trek to Sabina’s, scavenge furniture from the basement, load Otto’s truck, snatch some Polish delicacies, and head to Aaron’s.

  He opens the door a crack at my quiet knock. “Ari? Everything okay?” He opens a little wider and I see his PJ bottoms.

  “Sorry to come so early, but I really need help moving stuff into Todd’s room.” I offer pastries. “Brought breakfast.”

  “Um, sure. How about I meet you downstairs.”

  “Oh, geez.” My peripheral vision blurs, narrowing to a blue dot. I bolt down the stairs.

  “Ari.” He catches me on the sidewalk. “Wait.”

  “Sorry. I should’ve called.” Too little sleep, too much mayhem makes me all quivery.

  “Come back. I’ll make coffee.”

  “Do you have a naked girl in there?”

  “No.”

  “A boy?”

  “What? No.”

  He leads me back and I hesitate at the door. “Did you send her out the window?”

  “There’s no girl. I just didn’t want you to see what was on my table.”

  “Pictures of naked girls?”

  “Your birthday present from Zodiac.” On the table in his apartment a helter-skelter of paw prints cover a canvas. “When I went home at Christmas, my cousins’ kid was making handprints. Zodiac stepped in the pan and the idea was born.” His hands light on my waist from behind. “There’s the photo.”

  I lift a picture of Aaron holding Zodiac’s blue paw up in a wave. “I was at rope’s end and you just gave me miles to go on.” My back rests against his chest as I scan his Amish-sparse apartment. “Where’re your travel treasures?”

  “Storage. My lease is up. I’m going to crash at a friend’s ’til school’s out.”

  “Then?”

  “Peru. Then back to finish my master’s. I won’t be able to afford this place.”

  “Hey, that’s the picture I made for you in grade eight.”

  “I wasn’t ready to pack everything away. I’ve always thought it was spectacular.”

  “Please let me paint you another one. That heron looks like a whooping ostrich.”

  “Huh, I always thought it was an emu.”

  “Smartass, so you going to help me or what?” My face tilts back, kissable-close. Our inhales catch the other’s breath. We swallow in sync.

  “J-just let me get dressed.”

  * * *

  Dr. McKay surveys the cozy haven. “Is Todd ready to manage?”

  “His doctor said he needs to move more.” I check Aaron’s watch. “I’ve got to get the truck back, feed Todd, shower, and get to work.”

  Aaron tugs my braid as he follows me out. “Then what?”

  “I really should study.”

  Fifty-One

  Midnight and the Riverboat is a jump of bodies. Aaron steps through the door looking like a minor niner on the first day of high school. I sidle up, tank top to T-shirt close. “Hey, cowboy, can I buy you a drink?” He bites on his smile as I usher him to the stool by the cash. “What brings you here?”

  “Didn’t want you going back to that house so late on your own.”

  I kiss “Thank you” to his ear, lingering a half moment on his neck. “Enjoy the music.”

  As I deliver orders, I watch him listening only with his ears. Not even his toe moves to “Light My Fire.” I know where this set ends. I slide over, flirty-girl-like because music and this man moves me. “Listen to this one with me.” The tilt of my head lifts him off the stool. I turn, fusing back to chest. Thirty seconds into “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” his body relaxes into mine, hips sway in sync. A minute in, and his arms are full circle, his hand opens on my belly and the music slips past our ears, down our necks, through our chests. I lift my face back to meet his, a spark arcing from his mouth to mine. He turns me, swallowing me in a hug, fists gathering my hair as his mouth heats my forehead. “I-I want—”

  The fear in him, in both of us, makes me step away. Our eyes continue the holding. I’ve seen that same desire on Jake’s face and I feel the biggest loneliness of my near eighteen years on this Earth. “Lemonade? I’ll get you one.”

  He waits and drives me to the craphouse. “I don’t want you staying here.”

  “Todd gets scared all alone.”

  “Where’s Shirley?”

  “No clue.”

  There’s no sense arguing about him seeing me in. Todd welcomes the doggie bag in his hand. “You need help with anything before I go, Todd?”

  He talks, stuffed-mouth full. “I’m good.”

  “See you tomorrow, then. Eight thirty.” I follow Aaron down the stairs with my hands on his shoulders. He turns at the bottom step. “Maybe I should stay.”

  “You’re a cruel man tempting me like this, but I’d never ask someone I love to stay in this house.” His eyes widen like I just gave him a puppy and a kick in the gut at the same time. “Oh, as if you don’t know. Go on.”

  * * *

  I cut the seam of Todd’s pants and wake him. “Get dressed.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “To your very own nest complete with a stocked fridge and a dog or ten.”

  “Really? What about my TV?”

  “Aaron will carry it down.”

  “Ari, I take back that you’re a meddling idiot. You’re the best thing that ever happened to the Irwins.”

  “And you turned out to be a spectacular treasure in this dark, Todd.”

  Sing-dancing down the stairs sets a body right off-kilter for an ambush, especially by a cop with sneak-tactic training. From the shadowy hall, he captures my left wrist with handcuffs, bulldozing me backwards into the front room, securing me to the radiator under the window.

  “O’Toole, you friggin’ asshole, take this off.”

  “Just collecting a little down payment from Irwin.”

  “Fine. Unlock me and I’ll write you a cheque.”

  His mouth contorts with the scratching of his bristled chin. “This payment I’m taking in services.”

  “Tino will kill you if you touch me.”

  “Think you’re so dammed smart.” His elbow presses into my chest. “You think the guys in my pocket don’t know how to part a smartass girl from her money?” The smirk oozing across his face spills into my gut. “You see, when a cop kills a bad guy in the line of duty, they call him a hero.”

  “You don’t have to hurt anyone. You can have the money.”

  “Damn straight, it’s mine.” He fingers the steel around my wrist, snakes
up my arm, hooking the neck of my T-shirt before ripping it near in two. “With interest.”

  I go for his eyes with my free hand. He snaps my wrist with his right, backhanding me with his left. An armageddon of screaming, hitting, hair ripping, scratching shakes the walls. My knee connects with his balls, reeling him backwards. The only thing in my reach is a heavy-bottom pole lamp. I grasp it and I swear Jasper speaks, He’s ready for it to come right, swing left. I swing away from him, smashing through the front window. Glass falls like spring melt off a roof. A neighbour screeches, “What in heavens?”

  My arm remains attached to the radiator inside but the rest of me hurtles to the veranda, screaming. “Help! Fire, fire, fire!”

  Then I hear Todd clambering down the stairs. “You filthy bastard. Keep your fucking hands off her.” Fight ruckus and flying clatter spill from inside.

  I scream, scream, scream. “Help! Please, help!”

  Then an explosion silences everything. O’Toole’s boots cross the veranda, slow, like a run through water. The space around me pops, shakes. Lightening sizzles through my hair, burning my shoulder, exploding my foot.

  I descend into the ocean, tangle in the weeds. My bum feels wet and when too much of you spills out, you get very sleepy, drifting away on the back of a little seahorse and you feel boys you love rock you in the waves.

  “Jesus, oh God, no. Ari. Ari! No. Don’t leave me.”

  Fifty-Two

  Part of me gets why Mum loaded up on dope. I don’t have to speak or hear or feel. I open the eye that can open and Aaron’s face floats over me.

  “Hey, you.”

  “Todd?”

  “In surgery.”

  “Mikey?”

  “With Sabina.”

  Men in suits appear around the curtain. “She awake?”

  “In and out.”

  I recognize Halpern’s voice, close my eye, and disappear.

  “She say anything?

  “Just asked about Todd and Mikey.”

  “Ari? Ari! Who did this?”

  “O’Toole.”

  * * *

  A cast fixes my O’Toole-delivered wrist fracture. A bandage covers a bullet graze on my bicep. My left arm has fifty-eight stitches from ripping over glass when I heaved myself out the window. I would’ve thought a bullet through the foot would hurt more, but it doesn’t come close to the wrench in my shoulder. Auntie Mary braids my hair and washes my purply face. One eye is swollen shut and my lip puffs fish-fat. My tongue keeps worrying the split in the corner. “How’s Todd?”

  “Not good.”

  “I have to see him.”

  The nurse tries to shoo us away when Nia wheels me to intensive care. “Please, it’d be good for both of them.”

  Todd took a bullet right in his stomach. Tubes squirrel in all directions. His eyes stay closed, but they flutter when I talk. “Todd, get better. Please. Your new home is waiting.”

  A doctor comes in and the nurse drives my chair into the hall.

  Nia says, “The doctor’s willing to let you recuperate at home. We’re going to take you to Mina’s.”

  “No. Todd doesn’t like being alone.” I glance at the elevator opening and my lip hurts to smile. “Tino?” I struggle to stand.

  “Christ almighty. O’Toole did this?” Tino wrestles down the cry in his throat as he eases me down. “I’m gonna rip that bastard’s liver out and stuff it down his throat.”

  “Theo the thug, meet Nia, giver of earth, sun, and stars.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am. How’s the kid?”

  Nia’s head shake is heavy.

  “Anything you need, kitten?”

  I push down the Jell-O quaking up from my stomach. “Can you get me a book called The Incredible Journey? I’d like to read it to Todd.”

  * * *

  This journey, my journey is incredulous. For Hariet Appleton, there’s no physics, no mechanical laws that stop shit. No benevolent force triumphing evil. Prayer doesn’t work. Cheaters do prosper. Bastards get away with murder. The wages of sin is not death. Bad guys get their pensions in the end. These are the realities with few exceptions.

  Four weeks ago, soldiers from Ricky’s platoon, all shiny and polished, carried Todd out of the church. Policemen stopping traffic at every light saluted him through. The news called him the brave man who loved animals and gave his life saving another.

  Nia drives me to the cemetery gate every day, because I’m supposed to walk and it’s the only way anyone can get me to move. I sit on the wet grass. “How can this be your ending, Todd?” Words are garbled through my tears, tears that I just can’t get a lid on. “I make all this shit happen.”

  “Enough.” Nia hoists me off the ground, moves me toward the gate. “You just landed in a life so shit-loaded, you couldn’t help but get covered in it.”

  “There’s no denying I’m at the core of this.”

  Nia snaps my shoulders.

  “Ow, that hurts.”

  “Good, now listen to me. Your mother made terrible choices and you got dragged into it and your whole life you’ve been swinging right trying to fix everything and please everyone.”

  “You always swing right.”

  She rattles my shoulder a little more. “Sweet mother earth, if I hadn’t smashed windows all my life I wouldn’t have my Mary. Always righting is lopsided and exhausting for everyone. I love you all the more for swinging left and saving yourself. Now, are you going to pick up the treasures here or wallow in this shit?”

  No matter what the aunties say, I know I am a catalyst, a chemical reactor causing death. We return to Mina’s, me all red-nosed and puff-eyed. Aaron walks down and helps me up the steps. “Just came to see how you’re doing.”

  “Fractured beyond knowing where to start repair.”

  Aaron sighs. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this. My gut told me not to leave you there that night.”

  I sink on the plump sofa. “You tried. I sent you packing.”

  Nia says, “Hindsight. There were a thousand nights she was at risk. There isn’t a gut in this room that didn’t know that.”

  Mina asks, “Can you come Friday for early birthday cake, Aaron?”

  “I’d like that. Um, Giselle wondered if she could come by.”

  “No. I’m too miserable that my volleyball days are over.”

  “You don’t know that. Give yourself time to heal.”

  “The doctor said with this tear I’ll be lucky to get my arm over my head. I saw the report before he sent it to Dalhousie. My scholarship’s gone. My marks are crap. And the unbearable worst, I got Todd murdered.” I push hard against another dam-burst of blubbering.

  “Maybe we should postpone this Sunday.”

  Nia says, “Absolutely not. Life has to be lived no matter how impossible that seems. Take her somewhere back into life. That’s an order.”

  “That okay, Ari?”

  “Nothing’s okay.”

  “Can I bring Mikey to see you?”

  “His brother’s dead because of me.”

  “Todd’s dead because of O’Toole. What Mikey sees is that Todd saved you.”

  “I came back to Toronto to help and I’ve just made a mess that can’t ever be mended.”

  Auntie Mary hands me a white pill and an inch of milkshake. I swallow, then curl into Aaron’s lap, pretending to sleep so he’ll gentle my hair for a long while.

  Fifty-Three

  Six weeks after the shootout, I turn eighteen. Pesky helpers push me out of my despair using a whopping dose of weed. I don’t know where Nia got it, but I’m grateful, grateful, grateful. It smothers the pain in my shoulder and the ache in my chest better than hospital pills.

  Jennah comes over to cover up evidence of my near-murdering. She says, “Sam Lukeman got a call from the Dick this morning.”


  “Why?”

  “The thoughtful man remembered your birthday. He’s suing for his share of his wife’s estate.”

  “That bloody money started this horror. I’m setting a match to it.”

  “A narcissistic piranha started this.” I quiet, sinking into the buzz. Huh, Jasper, after all our looking, Jen just nailed Mum’s animal. “Sam told him you’d donated every dollar to the humane society in memory of Todd. What sticks in my craw is him getting his pension. Sam said they can’t disprove his claim that he got injured in the line of duty. And he was in hospital when hell broke loose. Now, enough of him.” Jennah assesses her handiwork and gentles my cheek. “You made it to eighteen. Our beautiful wreck of the helperus.”

  Jen zips up the softest boots any cow ever sacrificed its life for. A black skirt floats to mid-calf. A camisole and plum-coloured jacket make me look like a fashion model. Nia lifts my chin, looking past me, right to Jasper. “Let the darkness go, for a few hours. Today needs a little celebration.”

  Aaron arrives, pausing when he sees me. “You look . . .”

  Do not say beautiful.

  “Kintsugied.”

  On the drive he gives me a package. Wrapped in tissue is a small stone sea lion. The note says, Happy birthday to my spirit-sister. I love you more than oceans. Mikey.

  I’m mercifully numb and wish I had a couple of joints in my purse instead of the white pills.

  “Mikey said it’s for your absent present window. What’d he mean?”

  “I’ll show you one day soon. Is he talking?”

  “Yeah, we talk. He said to tell you that sea lions have winged feet. He’s trying hard to keep his heart above water, but he believes you being hurt and Todd dying are all his fault.”