Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

  “I’m gonna be sick.” I slide over on the shoulder. He hurls out the window, then plunges into his pocket for pills.

  I take the water. “Try this first. Just try. Look at my face.” He fumbles with the bottle. “Jake, touch my hair with your left hand.” Sweat bubbles on his forehead. “Touch my hair.” His hand trembles over the curls. “Now, close your eyes and feel my hair with your right hand.”

  “I don’t fucking have a right hand!”

  “Yes, you do. It’s in the ocean, changed to a different energy, reconnect with it, feel all the fosters you’ve guided holding it.” He forces breaths in and out as he lifts his right arm. “There’s the silk of it under your fingers, all the dips and waves of a calm shore.”

  Breathing slows as he drifts for a long while with both hands. His eyes open, lost somewhere between wonder and disbelief. “How?”

  “No idea. Len’s discovery. He’d get Uncle Iggy stretching out his imaginary legs in sun-warmed sand or dipping toes into a tropical surf. Iggy said it turned all the pain into electricity. Bet a scientist could figure out why.”

  He holds onto Sunday and a thread of hope through the long miles. I pull up at an old low-rise where M&N arranged a flat, give him the keys, and hop out. “Ryan will meet you tomorrow at the centre.”

  His eyes escape to the ocean seen a short way off.

  “What’re you going to do when things get tough here?”

  “Maybe I’ll get a dog to pat with both hands.”

  Hello, Jewel.

  * * *

  Dr. McPherson finds reasons every day to drop by. Huey sees him courting and makes excuses to check in. “Ari, lass, I’ve found what I think might be a moon. Come see.” Huey tips his hat to David. “Afternoon, doc. Everyone in health?”

  “Just bringing Ari some liniment for her shoulder.”

  Huey steps lightly, so I’m not afraid to ask, “How’s Jake?”

  “Ryan says he’s mining deeper and climbing higher every day. He’s started classes. Imagine my boy at university.”

  Huey unloads. I return to the gallery, Sunday on one heel, David on the other. “Can I take you somewhere special for dinner tonight?”

  “Sorry, doc. Promised the Missus a hand. Two new fosters arrived.”

  From his pocket, he unearths a diamond the size of a tuna. “Ari, I want you for my wife.”

  I squint at the boulder. “Are you daft, man? You’ve known me less than two months.”

  “I’ve been looking for you all my life.”

  “Then you need spectacles. I’m not your match.”

  He tries to convince me with a kiss that has the delicacy of a Clydesdale smooching a shrimp. “Give us a chance. I can make you happy.”

  “Stupid friggin’ horse. Gotta get Sadie back here, Jasper. She’s the best filly there is.”

  “I’m David.”

  “What makes you think I’m talking to you?”

  I hightail it back into the shop and eyes turn, like a pink giraffe wearing a kimono just stumbled in. Which I’d prefer seeing that one of the men present has seen me buck naked. “Professor Eagleston?”

  “Ari? Oh, ah, hello. You work here?”

  “Live.”

  “Ah, sorry, Ingrid, this is Ari, a former student. Ari, this is Dr. Long. She teaches Russian lit.”

  “Ari Zajac? You’re the one who painted that door hanging in the Bloomfield Centre. You know my son, Greg.”

  I back behind the counter.

  Some random customer says, “You’re Ari? We’re looking for you.” He spears the space between us with his hand. “Holt Andrews. This is my wife, Sarah. We saw your work at an associate’s house in New York. A toothy fish thing. Sarah had to have a piece.”

  Auntie Mary says, “You’re getting quite the reputation, Ari.”

  I bolt to my cedar-scented room.

  * * *

  Auntie Nia’s steady hand wakes me. “Supper’s up.”

  “David?”

  “Steered him away. Told him there’s a disturbing cluster of mental defects in your lineage.”

  “Thanks, appreciate it.”

  “And we appreciate you. The Cheshire catfish and the piranhas left with the Holts. Your professor bought a driftwood eagle and a cracked pot. Mary could barely shut the cash drawer when we closed.”

  Mary appears in the doorway. “Sam Lukeman just called. Seems Dick and Laura are going after ‘what’s theirs.’ Surely the courts would never give the pair of them custody.”

  The earth feels off-centre as I sit. “Oh, no, Auntie. They’d never do anything as stupid as putting an impressionable child with them.”

  Mary depressurizes with a limp laugh.

  “If he pushes, he’s going directly to jail. My worry is Mike going back on his own. Laura’s guilting him closer with every letter,” I say.

  Nia stands. “We need a walk before supper.”

  We traipse over to the Butters. Mike is slumped on the corner of the veranda with TV by his side. By human count Nia is fifty-five, but by her new-every-moment measure she’s just born. “Mike, I’m thinking that Lake Ontario would be a whole lot better if it became saltwater like our ocean here. I have two sacks of salt in the shed to make licks for our deer but I’m thinking it’d be better used if I dumped it in the lake to make it salty.”

  “That’s just stupid.”

  “Is, isn’t it. Would make as much difference as you going back to Toronto to take care of your mom.”

  “But she’s my mom.”

  “Exactly. You’re not hers. If I believed you should go back, I’d tell you so. Even if it was the hardest thing on earth for me to do.”

  His knees swallow his face. “Ari went back and took care of her mom.”

  “Ari went back because she was forced by law. Not to take care of her mother.”

  He shakes his head. “She went back when she didn’t have to.”

  “I went back for you, not my mum, bro.” Shore birds a long way off fight for scraps. “Is your treasure in helping Huey catch dinner for this lot or is it in a basement on Shuter Street running to the store to get the Dick a bottle and your mom cigarettes?”

  “It’s here. But what if they make me? What if they come and steal me?”

  “We’ll stash you in Peru before ever letting that happen.”

  The sun is nothing but a scrape on the hill when we reach home. Mary rushes into the ringing phone. “Ari, it’s for you. Aaron.”

  My belly does a backwards two and a half flip. “But it’s Friday.” My hand shakes. “Aaron? What’s wrong?”

  “Just happened by a phone. We’re in Lima today.” He stumbles around chapter-ending words. “Libby had an appointment. Um . . . we’re . . .”

  It’s inevitable that thirtieth birthdays would have them throwing caution to time-sensitive items on the list. “Did you know a baby dolphin is called a pup?” I say. “Could there be anything better to add to this planet?”

  Who’d have guessed how many tears hid inside over this? Nia pushes me to the great curved gnarl Huey delivered earlier. We hoist it onto the workhorses. “Do you know what’s in this one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let it help. Let it heal.”

  The crescent moon emerges with little coaxing. The knotted dancers rooted on top will pose the challenge.

  Midnight, Mary and Nia lead me to a feast ready by a steamy bath. They say they built the hot tub for their aging joints, but I know it’s for my shoulder. Naked, three earth women slip beneath the froth. Sacred music harmonizes with night songs. My heavy heart floats. Grief dissolving like the clay set deep in the lines of my hands.

  * * *

  Next morning, Mike rises, his feet on Pleasant Cove rock, head in possibilities. For years, my perception of Mikey was that he was a mirror image of Jake, but he’s not. He’s a self
-preservationist as much as he is giving. He does more than his share of chores and helping with the little fosters. But he plays, laughs, learns, and retreats for the sheer joy of it. The know-how absorbed working on Moondance, he’s translating into his dragonfly nest, a ten-by-ten stone footing, tight floors, snug insulated walls, sleeping loft. Huey salvaged a big window and already Mike’s totems number two dozen. He spins a skeleton key hung by fishing line, similar to my totem for Sabina. This one has a filigreed clover on top. “This one is you, Ari. My lucky key.”

  “I’m honoured, bro.”

  He is the child of a brute and an addict. He’s known chaos and corruption, bereavement and beatings. Yet, here he is. Here we are.

  Seventy-One

  The same minibus Franc long ago fitted for our Expo 67 trip rattles to a stop in front of Skyfish. The door opens and my Toronto females stream out: six-year-old Arielle, Jacquie, Sabina, Belle, nine-year-old Darcy, and eight-year-old Diamond, followed by their sun-glassed mom, Jennah, then a tattooed toothpick, Jory, with her adopted delinquents—fourteen-year-old Lila and twelve-year-old Kansas—and finally the driver, Mina. “Road trip before school starts.”

  Following is a VW van with Dolores, Elsie, Anne, and Celine.

  It’s the best of weeks.

  Holiday end, five sisters walk the shore. Jory says, “You ever thought of opening a camp?”

  “Yep, Camp Wabi-sabi for cracked pots.”

  Jennah says, “What a time these kids have had. Only wish June and Spring were here.”

  Anne says, “Me, too. I miss her.”

  Jacquie watches Arielle atop a tangle of driftwood, hands raised in an empress pose. “That girl is so much like you, Ari, it makes me dizzy. I ask her who she’s talking to and she says Othello.”

  “Ah, yes, her otter. All these kids are so lucky. Having you for sisters was the most spectacular break of my life.” I help myself to Jacquie’s arm. “How’d you guys know I needed this?”

  “ESP: extraordinary sister perception. Which now senses Jake and you are still unanchored?”

  “He came home four days ago. Hasn’t given me so much as a call since starting rehab.”

  “So call him. You can’t get your footing if you don’t know where you stand.”

  “I’m afraid to hear that the future I’ve fought so hard for isn’t going to happen.”

  Jennah says, “What you’ve fought so hard for is finding your own self and that’s dependant on no man—or woman.”

  * * *

  As they pull away, I wander to the edge of Skyfish. On the shore below, I spot Jake studying the ocean’s size, bare-footed, jeans rolled up, white T-shirt bright as only the Missus can get laundry. He’s changed, like the Pinocchio puppet swept out to sea and the real man returned.

  I walk the ridge, passing through the six newly planted sister birch trees marking the property line, then journey through the bare bones of rooms wanting to be fatted, skinned over, and clothed pretty.

  Jake crests the ridge same instant as I step onto the porch. He releases an orange rock onto the growing pile, then tilts his head. “Seems I have a trespasser.”

  I sit on the steps. “I own this piece. You gave it to me.”

  “As I remember it, that rock over there is what belongs to you.”

  “Guess you should’ve checked how deep and wide it ran.”

  Jake laughing out loud knocks Jasper right off his tail. It’s a sound neither of us have ever heard before. “Mind if I sit on your steps?”

  “It’s your wood. Seems we have us a situation.”

  “Seems so.” My skin shiver-bumps as he eases down beside me. “Thought for sure you would’ve painted that door yellow.”

  “Yellow belongs on the sister-house. White reminds me of the moon.”

  “I know I’ve no right to ask but I, I heard the doc asked for your hand.”

  “Aye, he asked.” I wiggle the naked fingers of my left hand. “I didn’t give.”

  “You waiting for Aaron?”

  “Someone been filling your head, Jake Tupper?”

  “Sadie talks the hind leg off.”

  “She does at that. Good thing I’ve found her a Clydesdale to work her magic on.” I nudge his arm. “You’ve read my letters. You know my heart is yours. Always has been. Always will be.”

  He talks to his knees with the conviction of a legless shoe salesman. “Ari, you shouldn’t wait around for a wreck. You deserve the best man there is.”

  “Ari waits for no man. I can dance on my own if your journey carries you away.” My head nests in the dip of his shoulder. “But last dance with you is the only end I want.”

  “Can I ask why it’s not Aaron?”

  “When I was with him, he’d wonder at my cracks and say, ‘Oh, how beautiful.’ It always left me longing for what I had with you.”

  “What?”

  “Someone who really saw me and understood what the fractures meant. Everyone wants to be seen, to be loved for the real of them, not the myth. He’s a lovely, lovely man but he can’t ever know what you and I know.”

  “I don’t know much.”

  “You know the riptide that drags you under and the grace that pushes you to the surface.” The wind lifts my hair, whipping it ’round. “I’m grabbing hold here. No wave is ever going to push me where I don’t belong. If I’m not with you, then I’ll swim alone.”

  He wanders my face, then escapes to open water.

  “Things okay in Halifax?” I ask.

  “I’m feeling like my feet are strong under me but I have a long journey back.”

  “Know why you and I are seahorse kin?”

  “Why?”

  “William Walrus says fathers give kids their legs, teaching them to stand, and mothers give them arms, teaching them to hold. Kids with shit parents start off as seahorses. To become men and women, we have to fashion arms and legs pieced together from make-do dads and mums tossed into our paths.” I lift my skirt. “I’ve got Len and Iggy, Huey and Ellis here. Spectacular, eh?”

  “Can hardly believe how hard I fell with what I had under me.”

  “More than once I’ve looked down to find I had a knee on backwards or a shin attached to my hip. You had to break yours so you could get them on straight.”

  “I’m half-blind, remember. Can hardly see straight, let alone find my arms for holding.” His hands, one present, one absent, turn, palms up.

  “Jewel can. Seahorses have extraordinary vision, they can look backwards, forward, and, at the same time, see tiny details right in front of them.”

  “I am seeing some things, Ari. I look ahead and last dance with you is what I see. I just have to know I can stand on my own before I get to the holding.”

  “Do what you need to do.”

  “What if it takes a hundred years?”

  “Then you better have a fondness for shrivelled old raisins.” I nudge his stumped arm with my ruined shoulder. “I’ve loved you to the moon since I was eight, but now being a wreck makes me like you, really like you in a way I never could like that perfect veneer. I’m here, Jake. However, whenever you want me.”

  He stands, pocketing his hand and his stump. “This piece of land has always been for you. Whatever happens, it’s yours.”

  He walks away and I yell, “You mule-headed bugger, this land is our land.”

  This land is Jewel’s land. From the Cabot Trail to the Great Atlantic, this land was made for—

  Oh, please, shut up.

  Seventy-Two

  I return to Antigonish for my second year. Immerse myself in estrogen. All my professors are goddesses, perfectly flawed and flawed perfectly. I make friends, girlfriends. We swim, meet at the pub, explore Antigonish—its shore, inlets, and trails. I discover kayaking a gentle river works my shoulder with minimal agony. I buy a second-hand bike, moving through town
in a way that exercises Sunday and me. The nest becomes both my creating space and a gathering place. I prepare Polish feasts, finding nothing connects fellow transplants like a home-cooked meal and few things connect girls like making jewellery. And weekends, I go home to M&N, to clay, to a wonder-full boy, known in the Cove as Mike Butters.

  Psychology remains a splintery subject. Today, the lights are off and the guy beside me snores as sections of the brain are explored. A slide clicks and my professor says, “This area here is the hippocampus, so named for its resemblance to a seahorse.” Hairs on my arm stand erect, moving across my back and up my neck. “The hippocampus plays a crucial role in consolidating short-term memories to long-term and is critical in spatial memory, which enables us to navigate in the world.”

  What? I’m not crazy?

  No. Just hyper-tuned to me, your navigator.

  I sit long after the lights have come on and students depart. My professor breaks my reverie. “Ari?” I look up. “Your paper.”

  I stand and collect my essay, “Clay Children: The Role of Significant Adults in Child Development.”

  “Please tell me you’re considering psychology for your major. Art therapy is an exciting field.”

  “That I know. I’ll send you ‘Cracked Pots: The Potter’s Tao’ when I get it finished.” Her briefcase snaps closed and Jasper pushes me to open up. “Can I ask you something?”

  “If you’re game for a walk.”

  “All that stuff on brain mapping. Can some brains have overdeveloped parts? Like, maybe a hyperactive hippocampus?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Is it a disease, like a disorder?”

  “What it is, is a fascinating area of study. Overdevelopment or underdevelopment impacts functioning. I’m enthralled by those brain maps that stretch beyond borders.”

  “Like how?”

  “My grandfather can tell you what day of the week any day in history landed. He’s a living almanac. I have a client who sees numbers, music, and words as colours. How intriguing is that?”