“I would.”
“It’s Huey that sets me worrying most. His fiddle never comes out the box no more. I told Jake if he didn’t start the mending, this birthday would be Huey’s last.”
“What’d he say?”
“That he wasn’t so important as to cause such a thing. So, I said that it had nothing to do with importance and only everything to do with love. He swallowed that into his gut. Could see it plain as when the Missus spooned in the castor and held Jake’s nose ’til he swallowed.”
* * *
I write my last exam, then drive to Halifax to see Jake’s old therapist at the rehab centre. Ryan works on my shoulder, moving it in ways that hurt so bad Jasper near bites him, but then he rubs it for a long while in a way that feels almost good. “Are you swimming?”
“I was marooned for a bit but I’m back at it.”
“I want you in the pool, four times a week minimum. We can get more range of motion back but you’ve got to put in the time.” He plunks a heated bag on my neck and Jasper ponders “range of motion.” You can’t ever have everything back, but you can have more than you have and it’s up to you to get it.
You’re more annoying than an ear-buzzing mosquito.
“So, did Jake really say he didn’t know how to set things right?”
“He told our friend all he wanted was to go home.”
“He could fiddle again, play keyboard. I’ve worked with several amputees who picked up their instruments again.”
“Really?”
“Jake could play with his toes if he put his heart to it.”
I half search on the drive back to Skyfish, stopping at random bars, but Jasper says Jake is making his way to Pleasant Cove for Huey’s birthday.
* * *
Mary and Nia survey my gathering of rocks in the truck. “Be careful of your shoulder unloading those.”
“Ryan said it would be good for me to push it more.”
“Lifting rocks?”
“Why waste money on weights when the shore gifts me with them?”
M&N arrive at Moondance an hour later. “The electric get hooked up?”
“Yep.”
“Mary and I were going to run the power lines in for your birthday gift.”
“I’ve always lived in houses that other people constructed for me. Bringing the energy here feels important to do on my own.” Along the wall where I’ll build the fireplace is my broken pot and my scarred lioneagle treasure box.
Mary unloads tea fixings and a plug-in kettle while Mike struggles in a fat weathered length of barn-board.
“Oh, Mikey, I love that.”
“It’s a piece of Skyfish for your mantle.”
The new town doc follows with a rock the size of a lemon. “Where should I put this?”
“Outside with the others, there’s a good lad.” Mary winks at me and mouths, “Think he has a crush.”
Mike turns on his way out, the aura of a mystic dragonfly surrounding the skinny twelve-year-old. “I’ll come back later to help.”
“Go play. Nothing needs doing.”
The doc tips an invisible cap. “Save me a dance Friday?”
“Um, okay?”
* * *
Jasper dizzies himself on the wheel while I experiment with wabi-sabi pots. Mary loads the kiln. “You don’t have to come tonight, Ari.”
“Yes, I do.” I unstraddle the bench. “Lioneagles are made for battles such as these.”
“Be prepared. The two years since you’ve seen Jake have carved away at him. There’s nothing left of the former boy.”
“Isn’t that what all the letting go has been for?”
I manage two lead-footed dances with Dr. David Macpherson. The ruckus at the door pulls my arm from David to dock-muscled, life-whipped Jake Tupper.
He manages a sloppy roughing of Mike’s hair. “Hey, Mikester.” I decide a daylight reunion the better and turn from the crowd. “Too good for a hello, Ari Appleton?”
Saltwater courses through me as I near him. “A hundred unanswered letters, more unreturned calls gets a girl thinking a boy isn’t much interested in a hello.” His chest stiffens at my touch. “And I, sir, am Ari Joy Zajac and I’ve missed you, Jake Butters.”
He backs away, grabs some random girl, and kisses her.
Mike launches, fists flailing at Jake’s back. “You . . . you baboon. Friggin’ baboon. Why you being a jerk to Ari?”
Huey gentles the rage. “Whoa, son, let Jake sleep it off and we’ll see to this in the morning.” Huey’s voice quivers. “Doc, be a good man and see Ari home.”
Jake pitches a half-empty bottle into the night and David takes my arm. I take it back. “I’m going to catch up to Sadie. Would you mind letting my aunts know?”
David scuffs his hair. “Sure.”
I wander to my rock, sitting until spring damp threatens my bones. That was a pitiful show at being a pathetic drunk, wasn’t it, Jasper.
He can’t fool us. Let’s go get him.
Jake’s boarding house rivals the craphouse. From Sadie, I know I’ll find Jake second floor, second door on the right. Sad souls line the steps. One tugs my leg. “Spare a dollar?” I pay for passage up and find Jake passed out, fully dressed on a filthy mattress.
On the dresser are twine-wrapped stacks of well-read letters. When night-gnawing starts in the walls, I tuck on a wooden chair and wait for the half-waking moment when first light shines into cracks made by the swell of regret.
In the gray dawn, he blind-shuffles to the bathroom, returning his storm-weathered self to the edge of the bed. He whips a boot at rustling in the corner.
I shiver-whisper, “Please tell me that’s just a very large mouse.”
“Jesus H. Christ, what the hell?” Weariness weighs him like a dinghy loaded with boulders. “Get outta here.”
“You forget I’m a stubborn, independent woman? I’ll go when I’m good and ready.”
“This is no place for you.”
“I’ve been in worse.”
He coils small on the bed. “Please, please just go.”
“Can’t.”
“You’d be surprised how fucking easy it is.”
“Easy? What you’re doing is killing Huey. I get you needed time for a big tantrum but it’s time to stop this wallow.”
His body pops a little. “This can’t be changed.”
“There’s nothing that can’t be changed, especially considering what I know lives in you. Three small words will stop this spin and start turning things right.” He rolls onto his back, covering his eyes with his arm. A stink, like sour milk and mildewed rags, hit. “Huey’s dad was a messy drinker like yours.”
“I know.”
“Did you know Huey was, too?”
“You don’t know shit. Huey’s a saint.”
“He’s a crap-dumped, flawed person same as you and me. You know their middle boy, the one lost at sea? Huey’s the one who lost him.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, human shit. He’d taken him out on the boat. He was so pickled he didn’t even remember him going over. Wasn’t sure he’d gone out with him or if he’d dreamt it.”
“Not possible.”
“Any one of us is capable of royally screwing up. Huey went into a death spin after and it was you that started the healing.”
He turns to the wall.
“You were not yet four. Huey was on the dock, saw your dad deliver a backhand that knocked you off your feet, then set off without you.”
“Tell me something I don’t remember.”
“Do you remember Huey going to you? Something happened that day.”
“What?”
“He ran into some small magic. You found—”
“What words? What three words stop this?”
“Just
saying, ‘I am sorry.’ It’ll take a million tons off your shoulders and start the move out of this.”
“I can’t face him.”
“Huey said that he could scarce face his own sorry self, but the sight of you alone on that dock got him up off his ass. He’s never forgot the feel of your scared hand in his. He thought if he could just take care of one small boy, then maybe he could let his heart beat and his lungs fill again.” I climb off the chair. “One sorry, then you can go jump back in the ocean if you need more wallowing, but you’re coming with me. You owe him this.” I gather up filthy bits of laundry. “Where can you shower around here and do you have any clothes that don’t stink like dead cod?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Today’s Huey’s birthday and you, boy, are his present. Get yourself out of that bed or I swear I’ll give every man on the steps ten bucks to load and tie you in the truck.”
Outside, I scan the weathered houses, heading for the one that looks not so pin-perfect I won’t get past the front door and nice enough that they might have a washer/dryer. I knock and a plump, friendly type answers. “Morning, ma’am, I have a man situation. I’ll give you five bucks for a load of laundry, another five for a shower, and five more for putting some breakfast into his pathetic belly.”
She smiles, woman to woman, while tucking the cash between her mountainous boobs. “Bedder makes it two loads and adds the bleach.” I hand over an extra five. “No, didn’t mean for more.”
“I’ll likely need your help to haul his ass down the stairs.” I head to the door. “Stupid friggin’ thick-headed male. Was there ever a dumber creature.”
“Not that I’m awares, dearie.”
* * *
As easy as moving a paper boat, I push him along and load him into the truck. “One small step, Jake.” He closes his eyes and we drive up the coast in silence.
Nearing the Butters, he says, “I can’t do this.”
“You’ll be astonished how friggin’ easy it is.”
“I’ve no right.”
“Maybe not, but Huey has a right to hear it.”
He remains stuck in the truck, but Huey’s arms are long enough to reach in and pull him out and the “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” damn bursts.
Jasper spins around my hair. Ah, some saltwater for my Jewel.
* * *
We meet not a hair of resistance ringing out a man over-ready to be wrung. For three weeks, he’s soothed through shakes and jitters as the Missus spoons in special concoctions to clean out and build up.
The newest foster, a saggy-diapered fellow, climbs onto Jake’s lap for a rest. It’s innate for Jake to comfort small broken creatures with a finger dance. Mike calls this tyke Puffin because of his wheezy chest. I snug under Puff’s legs and say, “Huey, tell Jake what you saw the day the two of you met.”
Less weighted, Huey’s shoulders circle back as if pulling oars through the memory. “We was cuttin’ through seagrass toward shore. Jake’s wee head was fixed over the edge of the skiff. He said, ‘Look, my baby dragons.’”
Mike asks, “What was it?”
“Two seahorses. I’d never seen any in these parts, only ever heard Granny Clease tell of spotting one. I said, ‘Where’d you suppose they came from?’ and Jake said, ‘They jumped outta my pocket.’ Then of all things we heard a baby crying, and didn’t we find one beached on the sand. And wasn’t it the little bundle of joy sitting there beside him now.”
If we’d thought it flooded before, this time the damn explodes. All the gods and goddesses move in. Mike takes Puffin. Mary plumps a pillow on my lap. Nia lifts Jake’s legs onto the couch. The Missus covers him in a quilt and Huey fiddles him to sleep.
The new day is maybe four hours old. Jake whispers, “Don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”
“Sleep. Rest. All the excavating’s done. It’s time to chip away and polish the treasures you’ve unearthed.”
“How?”
“I’m driving you to Halifax. Ryan can’t wait to get his hands on you.”
“It can’t ever be the same for us, Ari.”
“Hallelujah.” My hand drifts along his hair and down his arm. “All these years you’ve danced like a scared monkey, for the Butters, for M&N, for me. I want you to dance with me. Wait ’til you see how seahorses dance: they grasp a blade of grass with their tails, spinning, changing colours.”
He sighs into the pillow. “I know and I’ve ruined it, ruined everything.”
“You’ve just burned off the crap through this scorching. It’ll take time to regrow.” I trace the scar across his eyebrow, following its curve around his eye. “Can you see any from this eye?”
“Blurs, light and shadows.”
“Can you see how much you’re loved?”
“I’m so ashamed. All Huey and the Missus have been through and they never . . .”
“Your time with them has been more in their light. You just never witnessed where the darkness took them.”
“All the awful things that’ve happened to you and you’ve never once let it swallow you.”
“Lord, Jake, I’m swallowed all the time, but every time I get spit out with a big mucky slug in my hand, M&N are there saying, ‘What a magnificent treasure you have, let’s see what we can make of it.’ I’ve blathered and painted and written my way through the dark. You’ve kept everything locked deep. Never hearing how you fill treasure rooms in me.”
“I heard you and I threw it away.”
“No, bastard voices rewrote my words into ‘Maybe one day you’ll be good enough.’”
“After what I’ve done, I really am not good enough.”
“Right here, right now, I love you. Not for who you were or who you’ll be.” My finger silences the protest trying to get past his lips. “I don’t care what or who you’ve done these years past. You haven’t wrecked us. For the first time in my life, I’m looking ahead on the road and seeing our home and the family where I belong, we belong.” I need him full in my arms. “Can I stretch out behind you? My bum’s gone needles and pins.”
He stands. “You sleep. I need to walk a bit.”
“Take Sunday. She’s good company.”
Huey appears, hurrying on his boots and coat. They return an hour later, Huey’s cheeks coloured with a little hope. Mike shovels mush into Puffin’s mouth while outlining his project on whales.
“Pick Jake’s brain on this one,” I say. “All I know is they have lovely tails. He knows how they think.” I kiss all around and hug Jake. “I’ll be honking at six a.m. tomorrow.”
His arms don’t return my hug but his body feels a little less like holding a rock. “It’s a long drive to Halifax. I’ll find my way there.”
“Nonsense, I’m saving M&N a delivery run.”
When I arrive home, Mary is on the phone with Ryan, like a Rottweiler with a bone of education. “And get him started with some courses. Tell him it’s part of his rehab program. We’ll cover his expenses.”
Nia asks, “You steady?”
“Jasper won’t friggin’ shut up about Jewel, and I can’t get any peace about Aaron and Libby doing it on a jungle vine.”
“Go get your hands on something solid.”
I turn to the wheel and my mouldable partner, clay.
If I’d known the doc was coming, I wouldn’t be skirt-hoisted, silky-legged straddling the bench. The tips of my hair are clay dipped as I pray over the wheel. He silent-watches the birth until my head lifts.
“Is everything sorted out with your friend?” he asks.
“A seahorse took a small step.”
“Pardon?”
My bare feet kiss the wood as creator and created move to the workbench. “Want to watch me do surgery?” He nods. “Pull up a stool.” I study David Macpherson’s solid face. I write “oak” on a scrap of paper. “What’s yo
ur favourite tree?”
He thinks for a long while, like facing a test he’s afraid to get wrong. “An oak.” I show him the paper. “How’d you know that?”
“I’m a sorceress. Bet you’ve never seen an oak sprite.” I coax away bits of clay. “It’s the spirit under the bark, in the heart of the tree.” He moves around to witness the imp escaping from the clay. “I’d say this one’s more three hundred years old.”
“I know you don’t really believe all this folksy claptrap.”
“Gotta get this boy in touch with his own horse sense, Jasper.”
“Do what?”
“Just consulting with the seahorse. He says you need to do some horsing around.”
“You’re pulling my leg, right?”
“Not a chance of me doing that, doc.”
As the hour passes, I feel his breath behind me and sense him inhaling my hair. I mould a few oak leaves with my fingers, working them into the pot so the spirit peers through them.
“It’s magnificent.”
“Wait ’til you see it glazed and fired. Then it’s yours, if you want it.” I slip off the stool. “Come see what came out of the kiln.” He’s more interested in my face than the beautiful pots. “Doc, I’m telling you right up front, there’s no sense getting tangled with me. Another man has my heart.”
“You can’t mean Tupper. He’s a drunk.”
“There’s a big difference between a bona fide drunk and a man who’s just trying to convince himself he’s a drunk.” I study his square face. “No question there’s fine horse flesh in you, but I’m sorry, it’s not a match for the sea kind.”
Seventy
There are hugs as the Butters send another son to war. Sunday settles on his lap while Jake takes in the breaking light along the shore. I catch the gray on his face and the rocking, like when Iggy had cramps. “Jake, I’m not being unkind when I say this: close your eyes and scratch Sunday’s ears with both of your hands.”
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