Not because Abby did not know her way around the Bellen studio. That is where Abby and her brother spent their childhood. Her earliest memories were playing with clay while her father worked. Her father had made a child-size kick wheel Abby was able to spin with skill and ease before she could read or write. Michael, however, had the benefit of Will’s mentorship. Will would take Michael with him around the studio and teach him about the craft. Abby would eventually always learn from Michael what their father had taught him. Michael loved to show off any bit of knowledge or new technique to his sister. Michael would spend as much time as he could to be sure Abby learned the new skill and in trade, Abby would teach him the skills she learned from her apprenticeship with their Mother.
“Yea, I suppose you told Michael,” said Abby.
Will tapped his fingers a little faster as the tea was taking too long. “Well, they’ve ordered some new urns,” said Will, “you’re cousin and Brian. Urns and pots, some discs. Good amount of work.”
“That’s great,” said Abby. “What would you like in your tea?”
“Oh, uh. Like yours, I like it like the way you make yours.”
Abby added milk and honey to the tea, took the cup to the table, and sat across from Will. He was quick to have a sip despite the steam. Will curled his lip, “This is great, good tea.”
“It’s tea,” said Abby. Abby decided this was as good a time as any to have the conversation she wanted to have with Will so she started, “so I need to get back to the city in a week.”
“So soon,” said Will, his blue eyes formerly somber now lighting up as he took another sip of tea, “that’s a shame. You just got here.”
“Well, I’ll clean this place up before I go.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“And then, I’m bringing someone in to look after you and to help keep the place up,” Abby had taken her shot and was poised for Will’s reaction.
There was a pause, Abby expected that, and then Will took another sip of tea. “You know,” said Will, “I should drink more tea. Yes, I think I will. It tastes so much better than coffee.” Will examined the sides of the cup as if there were some label of confirmation, “feels good too.”
“You heard what I said. I’m bringing somebody in to help you out.”
“Black Breakfast Tea, that’s the stuff,” said Will.
Abby’s jaw clenched, “I am going back to the city and you can’t be trusted to take care of yourself. Don’t pretend you don’t hear me.”
Another pause.
Will set down his cup of tea onto a saucer and put his hands flat on the table on either side. His blue eyes went foggy as his brow furrowed over them. Abby watched Will’s lower jaw recede, making his lip pout.
In a low voice Will said, “Go back to the city.” Then in almost a whisper, “No ones coming around here. I can damn well take care of myself.”
“Is that what you call this, no food, your clothes, the dishes, this house.”
“I get along just fine,” said Will. He stood up and put his hand behind his head, fingers scratching a neck that did not itch.
“Just fine, is that what you call it?”
“Yea, just fine.”
“Well I’m just getting started. You don’t eat, I don’t know how much you’re drinking, and from what the doctors tell me --.”
Will cut off Abby mid-sentence, “—That will be just about enough, we don’t need to talk about doctors.”
“When are we going to talk about it, Will?”
“We’re not, doctors don’t have a lick of sense. Any idiot can tell ya I’m just getting old.” Will held up both his hands, “And I don’t want anyone poking around here. That’s the end of it.”
“That’s not the end of it. I’m not going to let you destroy yourself,” said Abby. “Regardless of what you want.”
“Regardless, of what I want? Fine way to talk to your Father. Your Mother would never stand for this, I tell you that.”
“What would she say about you self-destructing?”
Will was cornered, “So what of it!”
Abby had never heard her father raise his voice out of anger. It was time to back off.
“Fine have it your way. Go in the other room and I’ll make you your dinner,” said Abby. She was in no way giving up. Abby knew when to call the battle done.
“Fine,” said Will. He picked up his teacup and exited the kitchen without giving his daughter a second look.
* * * * *
Chapter 16
On that long restless night the Bellen family came together again. Abby found herself in the lake room peering out the bay window at the darkness and the glowing grey blanket of the lake hovering within. There were no phantoms floating in the mist before Abby yet her mind was clouded with the ghost of what Will had said. Of course, he would have told her brother the many things needed to carry the Bellen legacy and had the cancer not taken her mother there would have been so much more her mother could have shared with her.
A father has his son and a mother has her daughter, or so was their family dynamic. Will loved his daughter, the Bellen family was full of love, Abby however was under Emily’s wing. Will and Abby did not know how to be alone with each other. Abby was never daddy’s little girl. Abby was in her teens when her mother passed and was in college when Michael was killed. Will and Abby had essentially lived separate lives.
Abby felt she knew why.
Outside the window, Abby could not help notice, large in the dim lit sky, the silhouette of her mother’s weeping willow haunting the horizon. Her eyes fixed upon the tree and thought went to the time Abby spent with her mother before she died. Abby knew that Emily would not want Will to continue on his downward spiral. She knew not just because her mother had instilled in her the same compassion and gentleness that her mother held within herself. Abby knew because of a promise that was made that had already been broken once with Michael. As the cancer ate away at Emily, she asked Abby to watch over her brother and father. After Emily passed, Abby took the unrealistic request seriously. The request was not taken so seriously by her brother, he thought the need ridiculous, or by her father, distancing himself from Abby because she reminded him of her late mother. The request was the essence of Emily reflecting the glue that held the family together, the concern for each other’s well being. Michael and Will had rejected that compassionate concern. Abby felt she failed Michael and now was not sure how deep she would have to go for further compassion if Will rejected what she had available for him.
Gradually the sky above the horizon began to illuminate with the first glow of the coming day. Outside of the bay window, some shadows dissipated while others took form. In the height of the tree, the branches of the willow were now clearly etched in the horizon, and at the base of the tree, the first morning light revealed a figure on the split log bench. A man sat with his arms wrapped around himself rubbing his sides. Abby had not seen Will go out of the house yet she knew he was the man on the bench. “He could have been out there half the night,” she thought. Abby continued watching Will through the bay window as the morning brought more light. With the morning light Abby was able to see Will clearly. Will was talking to the tree.
Abby was not sure how long she had watched her father down by the frozen lake. Some time had passed and the sun had fully risen to a vibrant day. The golden light refracting from the morning sun created shimmering diamonds on the icy snow and small animals and winter birds were moving around. Abby stood up and stretched her arms from her sides. She decided that she needed to go out and speak to her father. Abby did not get dressed. She put her coat and boots on, wrapped a blanket around herself, and tromped out to the lake.
“Good morning,” said Abby.
“Oh, Good morning.”
“I saw you out here.”
“I was here, here I am.”
“I mean I couldn’t sleep either. I watched the sun come up from the house and saw you were out here, early,” said Ab
by.
“Oh yea, well you know, you get old, you’re up early.”
“I saw you talking to the her willow.”
“I’m a crazy old man. I mumble I guess.”
“I came out here to ask you something, if it’s alright?”
“Ask away.”
Abby turned to her father and then toward the lake and asked, “What do you talk to her about?”
Will looked at Abby then toward to the lake. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes.
“You want to know what I tell her.” Will paused and lit a cigarette. “I know you probably think I tell her that I am mad that she is gone, that Michael is gone, that I should be gone instead of the both of them. I don’t tell her that. I used to, years ago but not anymore.”
“What do you tell her then?” Abby looked back at Will.
Will turned his head so that their eyes met, “The same thing I’ve been telling her for forty years. The answer to the one question she’d ask me every morning. Hell, the one thing I know she wants to know, that she ever cared to know. What are the colors of the sunrise as I see them?” Will shifted his eyes back to where the sun had risen as if the sun were rising once more, “And today the colors were green, cyan really, with streaks of vermilion and magenta.”
Abby followed her father’s eyes to where the sunrise had been. With Will, Abby saw a sunrise that existed only for them. “She’d want to know that,” said Abby.
“Every morning for forty years,” said Will dropping his head. Will lifted his head and gazed out onto the lake one final time and then turned and took a step toward the house.
“You know,” said Abby. Will stopped, their backs to each other, Abby was beginning to tear, “she’d want you to tell her tomorrow.” Without turning around, Will reached back and placed his hand on his daughters shoulder. He held her for a silent moment and then started into the house. Abby stood in the snow with the blanket held tight around her shoulders, holding still as long as she could before her watering eyes washed the invisible sunrise away.
* * * * *
Chapter 17
Caroline made her way to the sofa and let herself sink back into the soft white pillows. The children had been fed and sent off to school, the first wave of office calls were already finished, and Brian was out on errands. Now came the time she had been anticipating. Caroline dialed the Bellen house. As the phone rang, she kicked off her slippers and put her feet up.
Abby picked up the phone, “Hello.”
“Hi, Dear.”
“Hi, good morning. You’re up early enough.”
“Early, half the day has gone by already. Wait until you have kids,” said Caroline.
“I’m sure,” said Abby, “I was up quite early myself.”
“Will?”
“Him and the universe.”
“Oh, so how was your day yesterday?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean? Don’t be coy. I already talked to Mitch this morning,” said Caroline.
Abby was on the cordless phone, relaxing with a tea, and still gazing out onto the lake as she had been since early this morning. Upon hearing Mitch’s name, Abby’s voice went up a pitch and she curled her legs up under her.
“Really? So, what did he have to say?” asked Abby.
“Well, he said that he was happy you came by, and that he enjoyed showing you the house, and that you two had an interesting conversation.”
“What else did he say?”
“Not much, except that he would like to see you again.”
“He did not,” Abby straightened her neck from the current angled position.
“Well, not directly, but when I said the kids and I were going to go watch Mitch and Brian’s hockey game later he asked if you were coming.”
“He did, eh?” asked Abby.
“He sure did,” said Caroline.
“What’s this hockey game all about?”
“A bunch of the guys get together every week and play hockey, it’s just an excuse for them to drink beer. A lot of us go and cheer them on. It’s a lot of fun. You’ll enjoy it.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Well I already told him you’re coming.”
“Sure, when?”
“This afternoon, after family skate, after the kids get out of school. You can go to that too.”
Though Caroline and Abby made plans to meet later in the day Caroline could not wait to hear every detail of Abby’s visit to the Johansson house. Abby repeatedly complimented Caroline on the work underway and Caroline in turn repeatedly shifted the conversation back to Mitch.
“There is something else I wanted to talk about,” said Abby.
“Uncle Will,” asked Caroline.
“I told him I am bringing someone in to take care of him and he went cold.”
“Well I can’t say that I’m surprised.”
“Me neither, actually the whole thing went better than I thought. I backed down before I got too much of a rise,” said Abby.
“With the way Uncle Will’s been recently there was a real risk that he may have gone on a bender,” said Caroline.
“I may have reeled him in when I asked what mother would think of his self destruction. He was definitely contemplative this morning.”
Caroline got up from the sofa, “What do you intend to do next? You certainly can’t go back to the city so soon. Will needs help on a daily basis. This is obvious to everybody except Will. I’m concerned that if you leave so soon there would be no helping Will adjust. There needs to be some transition time between family and a caregiver.”
Abby’s chest tightened and she began to speak at an accelerated pace, “Whether I am here or not does not make a difference. He does not listen to me. He does not want me here.” Abby paused. “I’m afraid I’m coming off as though I am trying to dump my father on you.”
“I don’t think like that,” said Caroline.
The more Abby talked through Will’s predicament the more she convinced herself that he needed family around to help him. The more Abby was convinced Will needed family to help him the more she was convinced that she wanted, needed, to get back to the city. By the time Abby was finished making her case, the only thing she had convinced herself of was that she needed to get somebody into Will’s house so that she could get out.
Caroline had heard something very different, “It sounds like you might need to stay longer. As much for your sake as for his.”
“I just told you I need to get back to the city,” said Abby. She stood up and began to pace. Abby thought she had made a riveting case for her exit. A case that convinced her, at least, that she could get out of this.
“You need to calm down dear. My god, listen to yourself, and not just your words but also your heart,” said Caroline.
“What is it you’re trying to tell me?”
“You shouldn’t be running from your father, you should be running to him.”
“Run to him? I ran all the way from the city for him.”
“It’s a metaphor,” said Caroline. “You haven’t caught him yet.”
* * * * *
Chapter 18
Mitch stood outside the cabin door with three brown paper bags labeled Willow Lake IGA. He had a bag in each arm and a third was cradled between the two, covering his face. Mitch was singing ‘you cannot hide from love’ as he entered the cabin. His leather work-boot poked into the open doorway to check the path, then one, two, three steps and the two bottom grocery bags were at rest on the Formica table. With a pause to sing the songs chorus, Mitch placed the crowning bag on the counter next to the dish rack that still held his plate and coffee cup from the morning’s breakfast. Inside the bag were bunches of grapes and he reached in and plucked several then popped some into his mouth.
Mitch continued to hum while he voraciously chewed the sweet grapes and then he shut the door and went over to the wood stove to see if any remnants of the morning fire were still burning, popping
more grapes into his mouth along the way. Mitch had natural gas for heat however as a rule, he kept the thermostat low and used the wood stove to keep an even temperature. Inside the wood stove, a charred log brightly glowed. When Mitch opened the door to the stove the log ignited with a little yellow and orange flame. Mitch did not need to relight the log. Mitch put in a few small pieces of wood that he had split earlier in the week then shut the stove up tight.
Mitch then took off his brown canvas coat and unlaced his boots. The rest of the day was going to be light, a good day. The day started out good already. Mitch had gone up to the job site at the Johansson house, swung by Brian and Caroline’s for coffee, and spent the rest of the morning shopping at the IGA. Mitch was going to take care of the few chores he had around the cabin and then hockey with the fellas this afternoon. He was glad to hear Caroline mention that Abby was going to be at the rink. Indeed this was going to be a good day.
Mitch emptied out the groceries onto the table. The contents were staples to a bachelor’s winter. There were the cans for assorted any time eats: tuna, soup, and chili. Pastas and rice for cooking an actual meal at some point as needed. Mitch bought a large steak that appealed to him as a breakfast steak though he could see now that the steak was easily large enough for two dinners. He debated whether the steak should be eaten soon or frozen. There were the necessary breakfast foods: eggs, bacon, and orange juice in addition to assorted vegetables and fruits: broccoli, carrots, apples, and grapes. To wash all of the food down there was beer and red wine from the liquor store across the street from the IGA.
The kitchen was small yet this much food did not take much space, nor was much time needed to put the food into the vintage white refrigerator or to fill the flower curtained cupboards in the stairwell pantry.
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