Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

  “I got eyes on him in Sudbury and we made a little deal. Knocked ten thou off his marker, he agreed to stay the hell away from you.”

  “Wow. You are a softie.”

  “What are the chances I’m going to see jack-shit of what he owes? This way we have control.” He polishes off a second cream puff in two bites. “These are gold. I could make Sabina a rich woman.”

  “She already is.”

  “The kid with her?”

  “Until school lets out.”

  “Let me know if you need anything. Anything at all.”

  “You already gave me something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A string of words. So much better for this girl than sapphires.”

  “Words?”

  “Did you know your first name means gift and your last means steadfast?” He seesaws his head in a yes/no. “I think you’re poetic in your own way. Unlikely heroes make great characters for a book.”

  He makes more room for ego by loosening his tie. “You don’t say.”

  I place “Constant Gift” on his blotter. “Save a spot for me on your September dance card.”

  Weighty work waits

  while they midnight dance.

  Muscle in him knows

  feet step best when heart is light

  when right turn, balances left.

  He dances

  in hidden rooms. She knows.

  Falling moon melts silver into dawn

  spilling through a now-windowed space.

  Light waking waits

  for his day dance

  and she knows

  each sunrise is a constant gift.

  Tino: This potter knows good clay. Ari.

  Sixty

  The rhythm of the train pounds out, “And the beat goes on, and the heart grows strong . . .”

  William Walrus slows as he walks the aisle. There’s softness in the way he leans over the seat. He opens his palm. “So sorry about your mother and big brother, little miss.”

  From the pouch, I give him two cents. “Mikey tell you?”

  “Old William sees things, you know that.”

  “Tell me what you see?”

  His hand remains open for another penny. “I see you got broken, but not beyond repair.”

  “I feel an utter ruin, William.”

  “You know what happens to wrecks in the ocean? They become a reef, a refuge teeming with life. But only with time. Stay open. Rest in your ocean.”

  “How do I do that when Jake is at war with it?”

  “Never met a war that didn’t end in peace.” He waits for another penny.

  “So, William, last year, Nat and BS cost me only two pennies and this year’s a four on the Richter scale?”

  “By my counts, it’s a five.”

  I flick fingers. “Jake, Todd, Mum, my scholarship, and . . . ?”

  “Fighting for Mikey’s freedom is, I suspect, the heaviest penny you’ll ever spend.”

  I unload the seventh penny. “So, I’m just three pennies from home?”

  “Old William sees good ahead. Now, let it all go and just take care of your own self.” He winks. “Say you will.”

  “Could I start by getting some ice?”

  “Shoulder makin’ a fuss?”

  “Did Mikey blather everything?”

  “Dragonflies never tell secrets. I’ll be back in a whisk with that ice.”

  This is too weird. Jasper, I know you’re my imagination. And William’s not really possessed by a walrus.

  Do you know for sure that parallel universes don’t exist?

  Quiet. Now my head’s aching, too.

  * * *

  I can’t face them. Jasper pushes me toward the Butters’ house. The Missus runs out for a hug before I make it through the gate. Inside is eerily quiet. Two fosters nap. Four are berry picking with Mikey. I rock a baby while the Missus stirs a foul-smelling concoction. “Spits out the trouble.”

  “I betrayed Jake.”

  “Someone warming the lonely spaces?”

  I nod.

  “Women likes us have needs.” She spoons gloop into a gauzy bag.

  “Us?”

  “The stormy years landed me in some tangles, both sweet and thorny. Messes of my own doing and those blown in by the winds. Now, puts the baby in the cot and takes off your shirt.” I comply and she secures a poultice with what looks like an old girdle reconfigured into a shoulder brace.

  My shoulder throbs, warms, tingles, settles, the stink transmuting to cucumber-mint. “This year was worse than last. I’m more bewildered than ever on how to piece my life together.”

  “You was caught in the Irwin’s quake and Jake’s earth split. You can only work with your own rubble. That’s all anyone can dos.”

  “You can’t possibly mean there’s a worse breaking coming to me.”

  She laughs like a happy bird. “Heavens no. It’ll be a teeny splinter. You’ve been through so many doozies, I worry you’ll miss it.”

  “There’s not enough gold to fill the chasms I’ve got. I’ll happily miss a tiny crack.”

  “It’s nicer sittin’ without a sliver in your bum.” Her floury hands dust my face, thumb printing the tiny scar on my cheek. The memoried pain caused by that micro fleck of rock rushes back. “No worries, lamb. Everything will turn right with Jake.”

  “Huey forgave you when he found out about someone warming the lonely spaces?”

  “Asks him.”

  * * *

  Huey’s shoulders bend like a sunflower in heavy bloom and I worry he’ll break under the weight. “You hear from Jake?” I ask.

  “Through the Captain. He says, even one-handed, Jake beats two men.”

  “Is he drinking?”

  “Yep.” Huey’s laugh is sour. “Cap says he’s never seen a man who hated it more.”

  “What can I do? He never answers my letters.”

  “He reads them. And Cap says his nose is forever in a book. There’s big hope in that.”

  “Do you know much about building houses?”

  “Why would you be wantin’ that, dolly?”

  “I’m feeling a strong need for a solid house of my own.”

  “You haven’t given up on my boy?”

  “He’s my last dance, Huey. Will he forgive me for not sitting out a middle one?”

  “Alls I know is fear of losing the finest woman on this earth woke me up, got me moving back to home. You have a hammer?”

  “Doesn’t every girl?”

  “Let’s get started, then.” I tuck my hand in his as we walk the rocky cliff. He asks, “What is it you call this piece again?”

  “Moondance.”

  “That has a big hope to it, doesn’t it, dolly.”

  * * *

  Hard mornings give way to solid summer days and soft nights. In my cedar-scented room, I age back hearing, “You’re a good girl and nothing that happened was ever your fault.”

  What is my fault, Jasper?

  The deer gather outside my window. I join them, letting the day rise in my bones. I feel the breath from a doe’s velvety nose as she plucks an apple from my hand. “You know, girl, it’s Todd I can’t bear. He came down those stairs to fight for me.”

  “Yes, he did.” I turn to Nia standing in the new light. “And there’s the biggest treasure yet.”

  “There’s no treasure in it, Auntie.”

  “It’s the crown jewel.” She perches on the picnic table. “Learning that you can’t control or fix everything—and, the biggest gem, compassion for yourself for being imperfect. Imperfections are the sweet spots, the openings where life gets in and love gets out.”

  “Todd had such a beautiful heart.”

  “There’s nothing, nothing that can change
what happened. So, what are you going to do with the force of that reality? Since coming home, you’ve turned perfect pot after perfect pot. That seems a bit of a lie.”

  “My wrist hurts and my shoulder never stops aching. My body won’t let me into my crazy-making space.”

  “Does the brace help?”

  “Some, but it throws off the spin. What really helps is weed.”

  “Caution, miss.”

  “Yeah. Seeing what Mum did to herself . . . it scares the shit out of me what I could become.”

  “Know how I define DNA? Do not assume. Don’t assume you’re destined to become your mum and dad. And never assume you’re immune from becoming them.”

  “How, when everything is so utterly wrecked, do I sort myself?”

  “By paying attention to the moment you’re in.” Nia’s hand gentling my hair is a perfect present. “How about we work on something together? I can be your shoulder when needs be. What’s Jasper got in mind?”

  “A sea lion.”

  “What medium do you fancy?”

  “Don’t know. Something light, pieced together.”

  “Let’s go see what the ocean’s left for us.” Dew shimmers as deer startle away through the treeline. “Will you be planting a tree for your mum?”

  “Haven’t decided.”

  “Consider it. Talking to a tree is good. Yelling at one’s even better.”

  “Maybe I’ll put a hawthorn over by daddy’s linden.” Along the shore, I gather bits of driftwood. “Will these split if I put holes in them?”

  “Not if you use a fine drill.”

  “What glue holds best?”

  “I’ve a polyvinyl that weathers any weather.” I stand on a big cache of gnarled wood. Nia asks, “What’re you seeing?”

  “Bones, feathers, scales, necks, wings, arms, heads, bellies, hair . . .”

  “You see sea lion bones?”

  “Not yet. But I spot a seahorse snout.”

  “Pile up what you want and we’ll send the boys down to collect them.”

  “Jake always did that for me. I miss him so much.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Have you talked?”

  “Mary and I tracked him down after we came back from seeing you. He was shaken something terrible over what happened.”

  “I was sure he’d come.”

  “He’s trapped in that same terrible thinking—that he’s the root of everything that’s wrong.”

  “Will he come home at all this summer?”

  “He has his whole history to untangle and rewrite.” We fill the bucket with what I imagine could be eagle feathers. “For now, just let your mind rest and your body heal.”

  “That’s pretty much what the Walrus said. Should I go back to Toronto in September?”

  “No need to decide any of that now, but it’s a good option. There’s no boy more solid for you right now than Aaron.”

  “This is going to hurt Jake so much.”

  “Don’t fret away this day worrying about ever after.” Nia tucks the seahorse snout under one arm and tugs me with the other. “Have to admit, though, I worry about your next year.”

  “Frig. You and the Missus? What’s coming now?”

  “You’re overdue for a dirt year.”

  “A what?”

  “Every seventh year, the field lies fallow and replenishes. No toiling, no loss, just a quiet rebuilding.”

  “Sounds spectacular.”

  “Peacetime is tough for those who have known war for so long. Most think that’s where the story ends.”

  A curve of wood with a knotty hole catches my imagination. “Look, it’s an eye. Jasper’s eye.”

  “Why, that biggity bugger wants us to start with him.”

  “Does the bear in you really believe Jake will find his way home?”

  “He’s as certain as I am of Mary having breakfast ready.” She whistles for the dogs and turns toward home.

  * * *

  It takes two weeks to gather sea lion makings. While waiting, I explore my new medium, puzzling together driftwood eagles, seahorses, a variety of fish and wind chimes, some with dragonflies, others with turtles. Bits of sea glass add sparkle and colour.

  Nia rigged a pulley from the workroom rafters, so my creations raise and lower and I never have to lift my arm higher than mid-chest. The sea lion has grown as tall as me and fatter than a fridge.

  Mikey and his crew scour the shore. Today they have a driftwood cache riddled with holes, maybe from nails or worms, several resembling misshapen tears. I lift one to the light. It’s a dragonfly wing. Mikey winks a smile and runs toward more discovery.

  It’s not unusual for customers to watch. There’s something hopeful about debris being pieced into something. A little girl asks, “Could you do a giraffe?”

  “If the parts ever wash up on the shore, I’ll put it together.”

  The mother asks Mary to add an Ari-Fairy clay chime to her order. “I love the look of the driftwood ones but the sound of these is prettier.”

  I wrap her purchases. “You’ve just given me an idea to blend the two.”

  “Oh, could you do that? We’re heading out whale watching. I could come back.”

  “I’ll give it a go.” As the newspaper curls around the mug, the words in a headline pop. “Oh no, Jim Morrison died?”

  “Weeks ago. Drug overdose, I believe. You mind if I pick these up when I come back for the chimes?”

  “They’ll be behind the counter.”

  I’ve no idea who I’m crying for as I fasten ceramic sea shapes to driftwood dragonflies. Mary says, “I’ll finish this. Go take a break.”

  One, maybe two hours later, Nia finds me in the summer house. She folds like a yogi at the end of the bed, legs bending like she’s half her fifty-some years. “Life really is just one damn thing after another, isn’t it?”

  “Morrison sent me a postcard from Paris, thanking me for the boots. Said he fell asleep with them on and woke to stars falling from my hair.” I scratch Spinner’s silky ear. “Why does his dying have more of a wallop than Mum’s?”

  “Maybe because he was a creative soul or because you’d already grieved your mum for eighteen years.”

  “I miss her. How crazy is that?”

  “It’s like an amputation of a gangrenous toe. You’re healthier with it gone, but there’s an empty space and your balance is thrown off.” Nia’s paleness is lit by sun. Her uniform is jeans, so faded they near milk, and a white shirt, clean and pressed. Her hair, colourless and ponytailed, has a defiant flip. Even with all this ethereal light, to me she’s mother earth, rock solid.

  “Do you think meeting me jinxed Morrison?”

  “Get over yourself, Hariet Appleton. You’re not that powerful, or that important.” Spinner’s tail thump, thump, thumps against the quilt as if applauding. “And if you persist in thinking you’re a bad seed, those thoughts will root into belief, grow into conviction, then to condemnation. You’ll look back and discover you’ve abandoned truth for a pile of horseshit.”

  “How do I get to where you are?”

  “You start by rooting out that arrogance that you have the most fucked-up life. Just circle this cove, look through the windows, and know how bloody blessed you are.”

  “I just have to look right in front of me.” I know Nia’s mum and sister didn’t survive childbirth, her aunt was a spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child tyrant, her uncle raped her night upon night, and hiding her love for Mary is the only way the world accepts her.

  “Then damn well see that I’m not a victim of my past or my circumstances.”

  “Do you forgive your uncle for what he did to you?”

  “I forgive myself for not being strong enough to stop him. But he’s just a severed gangrenous toe.”

  “That’s pretty mu
ch how the J’s dispose of Daddy.”

  “And you?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know how to reconcile how utterly I despise him with how I adored him. Or sort the way he was with me, both the sweet and bitter of it.” Such precious little hands. Touch Daddy nice. My hand leaves Spinner’s soft fur and pulls at the ache in my shoulder. “I’m, I don’t know, ungathered. Mum’s dead. O’Toole’s caged. The Dick’s defeated. Mikey’s safe. Aaron loves me. I’m here and can stay as long as I want and I feel farther from myself, from knowing anything, than I ever have.”

  “Imagine how it felt after the wars. The ecstasy of victory. The relief and absence of fear. Then looking around and seeing the destruction. Sons, husbands, daughters, family, and friends, gone. Art and architecture reduced to rubble. And what did they do?”

  “Raged?”

  “They picked up one stone and placed it on the next.”

  Spinner sits, ears peaked, hearing Mary pulling the rusty-wheeled wagon down the path. As the sun slips into the ocean, lanterns are lit and a supper picnic is spread on the bed. Mary says, “Huey and Mikey dropped off a load. You’ve enough driftwood to make a whale. What is it you see in this lot?”

  “Won’t know until I pick up one piece and place it on the next.”

  “He also said the roof trusses will be delivered tomorrow. You’re moving ahead on the house?”

  “I am, Auntie. I am for me.”

  Sixty-One

  On the shore, great silences fold into the crashing of the waves and Mikey, running like a stallion in the surf, has joy tripping at his heels. Mary asks, “What’d he call his pup?”

  “TV, for Todd Victor. A dog named after him would delight Todd.” My head finds the sweet hollow of her shoulder. “I’m trying, Auntie, but I can’t get his blood off my hands.”

  “What a waste that’d be. Let it colour what you do. You ever noticed how I reach for the crimson glazes?”

  “What wrong could there possibly be on your hands?”

  “The rescued seldom sees the flaws in the rescuer. I often wonder how different your life might’ve been if I’d been kinder to your mum growing up.”