Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

“Paraphrase.”

  “Do you forgive me and Aaron?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  “Then why this desert between us?” He re-enters the book. “You’re driving me friggin’ crazy, you know. I’m warning you, it won’t be pretty when I start taking off my knickers in the forest, asking the trees if they have a naughty-knotty woody for me.” He chews on his lip like the woods scare him. “Why, Jake? Did that cable snap off your pecker and you’re just scared to tell me?”

  He nervous laughs. “It’s . . . I . . . Ari, I—”

  Mary comes flying in, like a stressed doe. “Mike’s mom’s here.”

  “Laura? Here? Why?”

  “Says she’s taking Mike home.”

  Oh, Ari. The last penny.

  No. No. No.

  Laura is in the brown pant suit, showing years of hard wear. Her hair is slicked into a yellow-gray ponytail. She drove the blue sedan as far as Edmundston, where it broke down. Scrapped it for fifty bucks and bussed her way here. “It’s time I’m bringing Mikey home where he belongs.”

  Mike is unreadable. Ecstasy? Misery? Resigned?

  The hour passes when Jake should be heading back. He remains at my side as Mike shows Laura his world. “If your mum came back after you’d been two years with the Butters, would you’ve left?”

  Jake says, “Likely, yeah.” From the ridge, we watch them walk, Laura leaning to Mike’s ear to be heard over the ocean’s fuss.

  * * *

  Laura sleeps in my room. Jake and I wait out the night paralyzed on the sofa. Dawn arrives, bright as a silver dollar. Mike comes in, heavy-eyed. “Ari, don’t hate me, but I have to see her safe home.”

  “We’ll get her a ticket. She can see her own way back.”

  “She’s my mom and she needs me.”

  “Then she can stay here. You have to know the Dick sent her. He can’t stand losing.”

  “Pop’s in hospital. His leg went green and they had to cut it off. I need to see her back.”

  “No. You. Don’t.”

  Jake says, “Least wait ’til school’s out, Mike. It’s just a month.”

  “Pops is being discharged.”

  “I’ll hire a nurse, like Jennah did.”

  “Maybe. But she needs a ramp. I could make that.”

  “Why are you even thinking about leaving?”

  “Kira told me to.”

  Jake says, “Kira?”

  “His bloody dragonfly.” Mike heads to his nest and I see Huey in the kitchen doorway. “Talk sense to him, Huey.”

  “I’ve never had a boat or a foster who didn’t do better cleaning out some of the mess.”

  “Cleaning out? He’ll be up to his neck in shit. What’s all this hell been for?”

  “Just because you helped him on his journey doesn’t give you rights to navigate his course.”

  “You’re his guardian. You’ve got rights.”

  “We’ve known since last spring that they got the papers. You just had his father too scared to act.”

  “Well, his nightmare is coming true. I’m making that call to Tino.”

  “It’s an option. Maybe best one. You just make certain sure you’re doing it for Mike and not yourself.”

  I go in search of Nia, confident she’ll have sense to throw at Mike. She asks, “The Dick’s in hospital, for sure?”

  “Yeah. Tino checked it out.”

  “Would Ellis meet them?”

  “You can’t be serious, Nia.” She shrugs uncertainly. “Oh, fuck this.”

  Smashing every pot in the studio feels necessary. I leave before I do. As I cross the yard, Laura touches me. “He’s my boy.”

  I snap my arm away like her hand is acid. “Fuck off, you selfish fucking bitch!”

  * * *

  My truck is loaded for Jake’s trek back to school. Mike asks for a lift to the train and takes Jake’s silence as a yes. Chance, refusing complicity, hops out, stretching nose to tail in front of the vehicle.

  Get in, get in, get in.

  I’m not having any part in this.

  Get. In! On the drive we’ll think of something to convince Mike to stay.

  No one says anything when I jam myself between Laura and the door. As we drive, she pecks at the silence. “You get to start summer holidays before all the other kids, ain’t that a fun thing, Mikey?”

  Mike says, “I love school.”

  Jake says, “Shame you’ll miss the class trip to P.E.I.”

  “We’ll take a trip there one day. I’d like to see where they wrote those Little House stories.”

  Mike sighs. “That’s the Midwest. Green Gables is P.E.I.”

  Jake says, “I was looking forward to the awards night. Mrs. Brown says you could teach the science class better than her, Mike.”

  “Don’t know where you got your smarts from, Mikey. Not from me, that’s for sure.” Laura’s bony hip pushes against my thigh and I want to snap it in two. “Can’t believe that house you built. It’s really somethin’. Did I tell you that I got a real good job at Albert’s Pro Hardware? Bert would give you weekend work in a snap, seeing you know so much about building. Wouldn’t that be fun? You and me sortin’ nails and stockin’ shelves. You know, I haven’t missed a single shift since starting in November, I swear. Not been late or left early, even with all the trouble with your dad.” Laura can’t let the silence sit. “And you know who else got a job? Your sister, that’s who.”

  “Ronnie?”

  “You got any other sisters?”

  “Yes. Ari.”

  “Oh. O’course. Ronnie’s at Molson’s feeding bottles into the washer.”

  Jake bypasses the station in North Sydney. Mikey protests. Jake says, “Going right by Truro. That’ll save you having to change trains.”

  Soul-murdering hours pass before we turn into the station drop-off. Laura’s whisper fills the cab like toxic smoke. “If you had a son, wouldn’t you fight for him?”

  With that, Jake makes a manic U-turn, leaving a red Plymouth leaning on its horn. Mike squeaks, “Jake, I have to.”

  “Then I’ll see you safe to where you need to be.”

  “What?”

  “The miles are needed to sort this out.”

  When we stop for gas, Laura beetles to the washroom. Mike pukes over the fence. Jake, who has never been out of the Maritimes, never set a toenail past Moncton looks bordered between lost and found. I say, “I can take them. I’ll drop you at school.”

  “No. Doing this together is what’s right.” I settle into the miles feeling the solidness of Jake’s new legs.

  Between Quebec City and Montreal, we take a motel, pairing into double beds, fully clothed. Jake snugs behind me in a comfort spoon. Laura is stretched, hands on chest, like a corpse at a viewing. She’s not jittering, Ari. She really is clean.

  Shut up.

  Mike turns, his back to her, face to me, ocean-eyed. I lift the flowered spread. He scuttles over and under the musty sheets, snugging in, like all the nights we spent jammed in his tent.

  Back on the highway, Laura tries to span the distance she likely felt when Mike moved away last night. He answers her questions in single syllables: “Yes.” “No.” “Some.”

  “Shame we couldn’t bring your pup, but no dogs allowed. Maybe we could get a gerbil, or a rat. I hear they’re real smart. Would you like that?”

  “No.”

  Jake asks Laura straight out, “Why’d you go back with Mike’s dad?”

  “I was lonely.” Laura touches Mike’s knee. “And ’cause the best thing in my life came from him and me.”

  Mike exhales like a surfacing whale. “He’s only ever been mean to you.”

  “He needs us.”

  “You’re not a seagull going after garbage, or an oxpecker cleaning parasites off a
hog. And you shouldn’t let Pop’s treat you like Cunt, living in a cage full of shit.”

  “Michael John Irwin, watch your tongue and what’re you on about?”

  “Your chickadee.”

  “My what?”

  “Your chickadee spirit. You can have my nest, Mom.”

  “We’re family. Family sticks together.”

  Jake snorts. “Now there’s a load of pig shit. Family’s pieced from the people who make us most whole, not the fuckers who break us.”

  Well said, Jewel.

  At the rest stop west of Kingston, I take the keys. “I know the roads. They can be cluttery.”

  Two hours into silence and twenty miles from Toronto, Laura says, “Why a chickadee?”

  Mike’s shrug ripples through the shoulder-to-shoulder crush. “They’re sweet. A group is called a banditry. Figure that’s why you got mixed up with Pops. They don’t run from winter. They’re so brave they’ll land on a hand for seeds. People say they’re not as smart as some birds, but they adapt to change without much fuss.”

  “Where’d you learn all that?”

  “Jake, Huey, books. Just watching them in the spirit trees.”

  “You’re smart as they come, Mikey.”

  “Where to?” I ask.

  “We’ll go straight to the General. Dick’ll be so surprised.”

  * * *

  Jake stays by the door in the hall. I would, too, but Mike reaches for my hand like he did in all the uncertain walks to crapdom. There are six beds, all occupied by wasting old men. I’d say the Dick resembles an anorexic potato slug but that would be an insult to spineless creatures everywhere. “Well, well, well, there’s my man.” His rheumy eyes narrow at me. “Get that cunt outta here. All this trouble is your doing.”

  “You can count on big trouble from me, Dick.” He pales whiter than the pillow at my iced stare. I return to Jake who is watching the reunion reflected in the mirror over the sink, ear bent to every word.

  The Dick asks, “You playin’ hockey?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll get you back in it. Won’t we, Laura.”

  “He’s been busy, I’ll tell you that much. Top of his class. A scout with more badges than will fit on his sash. He even built a house.” Laura repeats Jake’s praises pretty much word for word.

  “How old you now?”

  “Turning thirteen.”

  “It’ll be good to have another man around the house. You and me, eh, Mikey?”

  I growl, “He’s going straight to jail.”

  Jake hushes me with a finger and I hear Mike say, “No. Not you and me. I came back to help my mom.”

  “Now you show respect. You hear.”

  “Not to you. I won’t dishonour Todd by respecting you.”

  “I ain’t got nothing to do with that trouble with your brother.”

  “You never had much to do with any of us. And you never stopped O’Toole.”

  “I didn’t know nothin’ about what he was up to.”

  “Not true. I saw you be a detective.” The Dick’s pain mirrored in the reflection might be the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “You could’ve been a really good one.”

  “B-b-bad luck is all.”

  “No, shit choices is all.”

  “You—”

  “Know what? I hate hockey. And I knit better than Jacques Plante.”

  Laura bites back a smile. “Maybe you could make your dad a nice warm sock.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  Laura looks rosier, younger, as she rises from her chair, like a broken-winged bird discovering it still has feet and a beak. “You know, Mike, having a man around the house is more work than help, and I think you’re owed a few more years of being a boy.” Her head bobs like she’s agreeing with the air.

  “Laura, for fuck sake—”

  “Shut up. Let me think.”

  “Think? You ain’t got no brains for that.”

  “You said I didn’t have the brains to keep a job. Find my way half across Canada. Bring Mikey back. I got brains for all that, and I got brains for making up my own mind.” She walks out, marches really, straight to the nurses’ station. We follow, us in body, the Dick in bellow. Laura speaks to the nurse at the desk, “You’re right. I can’t be managing him at home. Make the arrangements for Providence Villa.”

  “Mom?”

  “I’ve things to sort, Mikey, but for now you’re going back to school.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “Good. You and Jake can help by taking the piss-soaked couch to the dump.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll save up and maybe by Christmas I can bring you here for your holiday.” Her small hand cups his man-child cheek. “I’m your mother. Don’t argue with me.”

  I feel Jake’s hand on my waist and lean into the ache of a boy whose mother never came back to claim him or tell him she wanted him to have his best life. “What made you drive here, Jake?”

  “Maybe redemption for the all times I should’ve come for you and didn’t. My whole life I’ve been this terrified kid stuck in ‘what if.’”

  “And now?”

  “What if I said I’d take a rocket anywhere you needed me to?”

  Say, your moon is his to land on. Say it. Say it. “Then I’d say we’re ready for re-entry.”

  “Let’s start by surprising Ellis and Mina.”

  A nurse skuttles by with a hypodermic aimed directly at the howling coming from the Dick’s room. “Know what? Providence Villa is a universe worse than jail for him. Least in jail he’d have poker and scum buddies; instead he’ll have a swarm of nuns, twenty-four seven.”

  * * *

  I exit the changeroom at Jacquie’s new boutique in embroidered jeans and a black angora sweater. “These are awesome.”

  “Wait ’til you see the bill. Arielle for a week this summer.”

  “Ten days, minimum.” My hair settles into a party of serpentines. “Where’d everyone go?”

  “You’ll see.” We go out the front, along Yorkville, down the stairs and into the Riverboat. It’s loaded, port to stern, with my Toronto tribe. Jake is wearing Ellis’s Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt, not shy about the gear that holds his bionic limb in place. An hour in, Bernie takes the mic. “So, I don’t know how long ago now, ten, twelve years maybe, this kid wanders in looking for a sister. Jabberiest mop I ever met, telling me about boats and fiddlers, seahorses and turning pots. Then she started bringing in tie-dye and love beads to sell. And, like she owned the place, she started taking orders to the tables, swabbing counters, drying dishes.” Bernie looks smack at me. “Never actually hired you, ya know, kid.” He raises a palm for the laughter to calm. “So, this afternoon, in walks Ellis and wonder of wonders, Jake. The guy I’d thought Ari made up to keep the boys ’round here zipped. No, really, I saw Salt Wild four summers ago, prettiest sound I ever heard, and I’ve heard my share. So, ladies and gentlemen, without further talk, I give you Jake Tupper of Salt Wind.”

  Oh, Bernie. Oh, frig. Oh, no. I ready to correct the mistake, but Jake rises without protest and perches at a keyboard. It really is a home crowd, not much different than a down-home kitchen party, and Jake is not self-full but self-found. “Evening. One of the young lads I work with plays the bodhrán with his toes, so I’ve no excuse.” He one-handed skitters up and down the keys, testing rifts and chords. “So, Sabina, Mike tells me Simon and Garfunkel are your favourite. At his request, this is for you, all of you really, his bridge, Ari’s bridge over troubled water.” Somehow, he plays, plays perfectly imperfect. It’s a melody suited to Jake’s clear, pitch-perfect voice. His eyes catch mine when he changes lyrics to “Sail on Ari girl, all our dreams are on their way.” It’s sweet, sappy, sentimental; there are sniffles all around and all I can think is I want sex, really, really, really want
sex.

  Evening end, Mike asks, “Can we sleep in the nest like old times?”

  I sigh. “Sure. That’d be loads of fun.”

  * * *

  Predawn, Jake snugs behind me, boxers and PJs separating us. “We should make a start, so I can sort what I missed at school.”

  I turn, weaving fingers through his sleep-happy hair. “Thank you for this. For all of it.”

  “You ever see a new boat, when they cut away the rigging and release it for the first time?”

  “Yeah. My dad took me to a launch once. It fell sideways into the water. Thought it was going to tip right over, but it righted itself.”

  “That’s how I feel.” Silver light sneaks into the nest. “Why do I feel in water here?”

  “This nest is always just what you need it to be.”

  Mike sits up from the air mattress. “We going home?”

  “Let’s hit the road.”

  I pause at the door before locking up. Jake asks, “There anything you want to take to our house?”

  “It all belongs here for now.” I grab pillows and Sabina’s care package for the journey. “Let me take first leg. I’ve a stop to make.”

  Mike says, “I can drive. I can. Huey showed me.”

  Jake says, “Same here.”

  “He taught me too.”

  I taught you to drive, and you know it.

  Right, Jasper, you did. You do.

  The sun opens like a paper fan, filling all the city cracks with light. I still don’t understand physics but I’m oriented to space and time: I am here, right now.

  Oh, here’s our haiku:

  Three gold veined cracked pots

  Destiny Not Absolute.

  We are here, right now.

  Somewhere on the map of my life, BS is in an unremembered box. Mum is dust in a pickle jar. Daddy occupies a dishonoured plot. O’Toole molders in a cage and the Dick is reduced to not much more than a fetal pig. You notice the ones with the biggest meanness leave the smallest mark?

  I turn into Holy Cross. Natasha’s grave is a party of flowers. By the dog treats and seeds around Todd’s grave, I suspect Mina’s been here. Mike lifts his face to the greening trees. “Can you sing the open window song, like on all the nights in our room?”