He sleeps.
Sunrise draws me to the shore. Nia and the dogs meet me between Skyfish and the piece Jake and I call Moondance. She says, “How’s our girl?”
“How hard will you slug me if I tell you that the terror of leaving this happiness is deflating my cells?”
“You’ve done well, but summer is coming to an end.”
“I want to stay here.”
“I want that, too. You’ve given Mikey a solid footing and built up an army of support.”
“But they’ll be outside. It’s not the same as being inside. Todd said the Dick got passed over for detective and he’s pissing all over everyone.”
“Maybe we should give keeping Mikey here a try. Really, what could Irwin do?”
“He’d go after Jory. I’m sure of it. She’s an easy target and expendable. We take his, he’ll destroy mine.” The water tugs at my ankles while shore mush anchors me. “A couple of nights ago Jake said all I had to do was ask and he’d come to Toronto with me until we could see Mikey out of crapdom.”
She whips a stick for the dogs. “And what do you think about that?”
“It felt like a rope thrown to save me. But then the Missus asked if Jake and I would move into the house after Mikey left. They’ve got a brood there now with night terrors.”
“We’ll hire someone to help out at the Butters’.”
“Jake is still so tangled up in doing for the Butters what they did for him. Besides, for him, Toronto would be like a seahorse living in a toilet bowl.”
“Don’t forget, you’re seahorse kin.”
“I’ve adapted.”
“You’ve evolved.” Nia smiles as Jake crests the ridge, skitters down the cliff, whooping like a banshee as he runs toward the ocean. I’m stirred up as his lean frame streaks across the pebbly beach and plunges into the water. “Better go save him while I get some towels.”
“Bring Mary, too. And coffee—and cinnamon buns.”
“Light a fire.”
I drop my jeans and ditch my sweater and do exactly that.
I feel Mikey’s forehead for fever. “You feeling okay?”
“The cat just makes my eyes itchy.”
I accept the excuse. It’s easier than the reality that he’s been off by himself crying—again.
“Ari, phone.” Mary looks like a mirage behind the screen. “It’s Chase.”
“Yeah, I figured as much.” I navigate the path like I’m walking the plank and take the receiver. “Chase Pace, it’s August twenty-eighth. I thought you were going to give me a week.”
“No need. It’s an easy question.”
“Okay. Let’s hear it.”
“You’re ninety years old. What’s the one regret you wish you could change?”
“That’s it?”
“That’s the question, but here are the rules. You have to look for the grace of it, not the judgment, yours or anyone else’s. You have to look for the answer in your passions, your art, your writing, the ocean, the faces of those you love, the ethereal things that give you joy. It has to feel light and free. If it doesn’t, you’re convincing yourself of the wrong decision. Ari? How does that feel?”
“Kind of spectacular. Thank you.”
“I love you. Bye.”
“Bye.”
I walk the shore, miles of it. What would I regret when I’m ninety, Jasper?
I’d regret not being with my Jewel.
Yeah, that’s it, isn’t. We belong with our matches. Seahorses don’t belong in toilets, do they? Red rocks look like ancient creatures emerging from a long sleep. I climb over them and sit like I’m riding one home. My finger loops in the water, writing, freedom, passion, joy. I’m allowed to stay, Jasper. I’m free to stay. We’re free.
Work pulls me back to Skyfish. Mary’s fingers are pressed to her lips. Her eyes are ocean-full.
“What’s wrong?”
She spins Where Questions Sleep Answers Lie. “Oh, m’girl, your salt pots are from a different dimension.” In a fissure, a small child is folded tight, his back is the only thing seen. The sharp shoulder blades hint at wings. An iridescent dragonfly emerges, lightly, on the other side.
“It tells me Mikey is going to be okay.”
I go over to the Butters to help Mikey pack. He wraps up treasures: a spiky shell, pretty stones, a lobster claw . . . and chatters about sand dollars and seaweed, crabs versus lobsters, and why great whites are rarely seen on these shores, what makes the sand red and the rocks black. Listen to him. He’s not scared, is he, Jasper?
Jake gathers up fosters like he’s an octopus, settling them with a story and dreamy fiddle tunes. He stretches out beside Mikey, drapes him with his arm, and sings a Gaelic lullaby.
What will I regret when I’m ninety? That every lost boy won’t have Jake to sing him to sleep.
The Missus says, “I never met a child more like Jake in all my borned days.”
“Mikey?”
“Them’s like two peas.”
“Thank you for raising him up.”
“We dos what needs doing, eh, lamb?”
Jake stretches off the bed. “You want us to stay here?”
“Jesus no, yous two on that squeaky bed would be waking all the kids. Go visit with Mary and Nia. They’ve not had enoughs of you.”
Middle of the night, water breaking against the rocks wakes me. The grass heaves with grace as wind rushes to greet the skin of me. It pushes me to Skyfish, invites me to lie on the scarred floor. The rafters above stretch like the ribcage of my goddess. Goddess of clay and colour, word pictures and piercing kindness. “I’m being reborn, Papa.”
Into who, corka?
“Myself. The unthinkable one.”
And what do you regret of your lives so far? The fire? The grit? The floods. The many hands that have shaped you?
“I don’t regret any of it.”
Look, you have arms and legs. Go feed the deer.
The un-weightedness is what I notice most. There is lightness in Jake’s arms as he holds me. “I’ll get a start on the house. Maybe by Christmas there will be a fireplace.” I feel Jasper spine-up as his tail releases Jewel’s.
Mary already has my small bag and a lunch packed. Nia tucks a new journal into my hand. “Do you know how proud we are of you marching back into that darkness?”
“You’ve known all along I was going back, haven’t you?”
“Aye.”
“I’m glad I didn’t know.”
“When did you?”
“Last night I saw my newest pot in a different light. It wasn’t saying Mikey would be okay. That piece is the most unstable thing I’ve ever made. Those wings will break off if the dogs bark too loud. What regret would stay with me all my life? That all the broken kids coming up might not have Mikey because I didn’t ‘dos what needs doing.’”
“That’s one side of it. Ask yourself where your salt-pots come from. What made you know that this time with Jake was so good?” Mary gentles my stress of hair. “There’s still softness in your clay. I suspect there always will be.”
“It’s kinda hopeful not being fully baked.” I pick up my bag. “You think Mikey knows?”
Nia bolsters me out the door. “Could he ever imagine that you’d willingly go back into that hell?”
Jake takes the bag from me and plunks it in the truck. “I’ve been sick that he asked us not to come for the goodbye.”
“I get why. Seeing your paradise disappear can make a kid really sulky.” I hug Mary and Nia. “I don’t know how I’m going to swing it, but I’m coming at Christmas.”
“Hurry along now. That train’s not going to wait.”
Jake peels along the gravel and swings on to the road.
“Slow down. I can get the afternoon train.”
“One, if I don’t
let you go while my head is winning over my busting heart, I never will.” His down-home “heart” always sounds more like “art” and the ache of it creeps into my bones. “And two, I can’t bear Mikey sitting alone on that train right now.”
I wonder if Jake’s terminal goodness will always make him soft or if he’ll one day snap under the fierce weight of it. “I love you, Jake.”
“Our ever after is down the road. I know that. Just tell me you’ll save last dance.”
What ifs crash through my head: What if the Dick kills me? What if he cuts my face? What if O’Toole takes what he wants? What if more of Mum seeps into me? “What if the pull of this leaving tears me in two?”
“Then I’ll love you twice as much.”
“I believe you would.”
The train is kicking up noise. Jake takes the ticket that holds my fate from his pocket. “Run, love.”
We sprint and I scramble up the steps of the caboose as the train lurches forward. Jake tosses my bag and I catch it. “Christmas.”
“Just a few short months.” His smile trembles. “Last dance?”
The clatter of the train swallows my, “First and last.”
My stomach heaves at the interminable in-between.
He touches his eye, his heart, then points to me. Everything we shared gets bigger as he becomes a speck of light. I’m scared, Jasper. What if there’s no return trip for this train?
Lioneagles can fly.
I open the door, shimmy between supply shelves, a couple of bunks, a desk, a stove, and through to the passenger cars. Three cars up, I see William crouched in the aisle. He looks up when I approach and shakes his head in a smile. He turns back to Mikey. “Dry your eyes, laddie, and listen to old William when he tells you there’s good ahead. You can believe me when I say I see it.” He ratchets up and takes my bag. “Let me help you with that, little miss.”
Mikey is too broken to look up. I take William’s spot. “I’m here, Mikey.”
His sobs are gulpy and his little face, a mucousy mess. “No, Ari. I don’t want to say goodbye.”
I take a cold cloth from William’s hand and sooth his swells and blotches. “I have no idea what waits ahead, but whatever it is we’ll muddle through it together.”
His inhale is a bumpy struggle. “What?”
“A seahorse never leaves a spirit brother behind.” I feel the shiver in him as he takes hold. “Everything is okay. We’ll be okay.”
“No, you don’t have to. I can do it.”
“I know.” I maneuver to a sit and he keeps hold. “But maybe I have to be with you to do what I need to do.”
“You’re really coming with me?”
“Really and truly.”
His head lolls on my shoulder. “Jake will be so sad.”
“And won’t his music be more beautiful for it.”
He clutches my hair like an otter staying afloat in a tangle of seaweed and rests in the hope of things. The closeness of Mary’s voice startles-up my neck hairs. Didn’t I say you’d make a great potter?
Mikey shifts and I feel the softness in him, the elasticity, the grit, the water. You’re right, Auntie. It’s the best clay I’ll ever place my hands on.
Mikey sighs from a dreamy place, like the dragonfly in him has been flitting around my thoughts. “I have two spirit fathers like you have Mary and Nia.”
“Huey and Jake?”
“Huey’s my grandpa. I mean Jake and Aaron.”
“I have lots of mums and dads. It’s how I sort out my arms and legs. You gather as many as you need.”
“He promised to meet my train.” His breathing evens and calms. “He put a letter in my bag for you.”
“Jake?”
“No.” He yawns. “Aaron.”
“Oh.”
I attempt to navigate Mikey’s bag with my foot as he sleeps heavy on me. A passenger on the way to the loo helps me out. I fish Aaron’s note out of the zippered pocket.
June 22
Ari: When you walked away today that mysterious thing bumping around inside me said you’d be coming back in September. The possibility was like surfacing for air.
It’s a dolphin, isn’t it, Ari.
Yeah. How one landed in a boy from the prairies is a spectacular wonder, eh, Jasper.
I can scarcely believe anyone would have the courage to do it, yet, if you’re reading this you are indeed on your way and I’ll be waiting to give you and Mikey a lift. How do I explain this “spectacularly” weird friendship we have? I can’t, but I have to say it means more to me than any connection I’ve ever had with another human being. That’s over the top, I know, but it is what it is.
Travel the miles knowing you have a friend here who is so grateful for a little more time with you. A.
Hours pass in silence. The honey-coloured days behind me fade. Still, I feel their heat on my back. A few passing trees blush scarlet and I know autumn’s flame is ahead. Jasper hums one of Iggy’s quotes, The sweetness we’ve left behind, the fire that is to come, is nothing compared to what lies inside us.
Jasper, there’s a war ahead. Isn’t there?
He shelters in the curve of my ear. Armageddon.
A lie now and then wouldn’t hurt you, you know.
Mikey is small for eight but still too big to fit on my lap. His legs spill onto the seat beside him while the rest of him puzzles tight into me. William comes, eases my arm with a plump pillow, and covers Mikey’s boy-scraped legs with a blanket. His great black hand opens full on my head. “Old William loves to be surprised.”
“You didn’t see me coming?”
“Hope is a thing you let fly and land where it might.”
“Is there good ahead?”
“Legions might set this old world on a wild spin. But one can turn it right side up.” He tips his hat. “There’s good right here, little miss.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is about family. Thank you to every perfectly imperfect family I have worked with over the years. Your resiliency inspires me. And to my own amazing children. Your compassion and creativity are woven throughout the pages. To my partner, Brian Tucker, I have written this through only your support, encouragement, and listening ear. Thank you for meeting my every “I can’t,” with “Yes, you can” and many cups of coffee.
To my sister, Sue Rayner, my cheerleader and best friend, I am so grateful to you, John Rayner, and Shauna Vaillancourt for being my first readers, and believers.
This book is also about the power of imagination. I am privileged to be part of the Writers’ Community of Durham Region, a place where “hearing voices” and imaginary friends are celebrated. I am indebted to my WIP group, past and present, especially Kevin Craig, Heather O’Connor, Barb Hunt, Sherry Hinman, Myrna Marcelline, Anne MacLachlan, Sandra Clarke, Patrick Meade, Sylvia Chiang, and the wonderful Karen Cole, who has been with me start to finish. You have all enriched my writing.
I am grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for supporting my imagination. To the spectacular Hilary McMahon, at Westwood Creative Artists, thank you for loving this book and believing in me. To the incredible team at ECW Press, especially the insightful Michael Holmes, my editor, thank you for bringing The Clay Girl to life.
Most of all, this book is about everyday heroes. My life is so rich with them that I can’t name you all. Thank you, Cheryl Hermer, the most astonishing teacher any child could ever have. To Ally and Alycia Rayner/Fridkin for being the real-life aunties caring for a child. Thank you, Ruth Walker, a champion for writers. You encouraged me to jump and gave me the wings to make all this possible.
And, lastly, to my nieces, Frances McDowell, who faces mountains with wit, tenacity, brilliance and creativity, and Seana Rossi, the one who showed us all how to be heroes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heather Tucker has won many prose and short-st
ory writing competitions, and her stories have appeared in anthologies and literary journals. She lives in Ajax, Ontario.
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Copyright © Heather Tucker, 2016
Published by ECW Press
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