Unleaving

by Melissa Ostrom

  “Did you go to school around here?” Hope asked.

  She shook her head. “Vermont.” Then, quickly, to change the subject: “I’m staying with my aunt. She has a place by the lake.” She breathed a bit easier. At least that was true.

  Ran looked even more aggrieved. Leaning back in the rocking chair, she muttered, “Traveling is what I wanted to do, too.”

  Hope grunted. “Your parents must be cool, Marge.”

  A librarian and an accountant? Maggie didn’t correct that assumption, either.

  Ran sat up and nodded at the book in Maggie’s lap. “What did you think about My Name Is Lucy Barton?”

  “It was good.” At least she thought it was. Honestly, she wasn’t sure. She’d been so distracted while she read it. She shrugged. “I liked it.”

  The girls gazed at her expectantly. Kindly. Without judgment or suspicion or—worse—titillation.

  And suddenly, Maggie felt intensely, almost limply relieved. She was doing what she’d set out to do: start over from a point of anonymity. She didn’t know these girls. More important, they didn’t know her.

  This book club was just what she needed.

  Pressing the novel against her chest, she racked her brain to think of something to say about the book and settled on the one thing she’d noticed: “Lucy’s relationship with her mother was interesting, how the two are close without being…” She glanced around, searching for the word, and finished, “Open.”

  Ran hummed a note of agreement. “There was something really tender about that mother-daughter relationship…” She kept talking, going on about the ways the characters showed their love, and Maggie half-listened.

  But the other half of her was replaying her own words: how the two are close without being open. Maybe that could happen in her relationships, too. Close but closed. Friendly but private. She felt a tiny thrill at the possibility and thought, That’s how I’ll operate. I can be interesting Marge, enjoying a gap year, traveling, visiting my cool aunt. I can be whoever I want!

  She realized this probably wasn’t the point of Strout’s book—realized, too, some self-serving self-justification was going on with her interpretation.

  She didn’t care.

  7

  MAGGIE HOVERED IN the studio doorway, took a step forward, changed her mind, and stepped back. She should have waited until lunchtime to pass along the information. Her aunt was busy, working at the potter’s wheel.

  “Hey.” Wren looked up from the pot she was making. “What’s going on?”

  “Thomas stopped by. He left a bag of butternut squash for you on the counter.”

  “That was nice. Guess what we’re having for supper?”

  Maggie smiled weakly. Mom wouldn’t be happy if she knew the kinds of dishes her daughter and sister were calling meals, most of which came down to a single thing in a bowl. “Want me to put one in the oven?”

  “In a bit. Come check out what I’m making first.”

  Maggie stuck her hands into her cardigan pockets and shuffled in. The aunt had never said the studio was off-limits, but until now, neither had she asked Maggie to hang out with her in here and chat. Hanging out and chatting just weren’t Wren’s thing, not even during mealtimes. They exchanged a few words, ate, and parted. This didn’t bother Maggie. The quiet held a comfortable quality. But Maggie would have liked to have spent more time in the studio as well.

  It was a cozy place, dusty and redolent with something earthy, probably the clay. Though the downcast morning grayed the windows, the room was well-lit, and the metal equipment shone cheerfully. On the worktable, the aunt had three rows going, a series of roundish white pots, then a line of knobbed lids, and finally a row of what looked like miniature cooling towers. Spouts. “Teapots?”

  “Yep. In porcelain.”

  Maggie walked by the table. “Why don’t you do all of one thing at a time?”

  “I probably could for the spouts, but you’ve got to measure the mouth of the body to get the right size for the lid. With these.” She picked up a long, two-legged tool. “Calipers.” The aunt returned the tool to the work stand. “No beachcombing today?”

  Maggie bent to better examine an oddly shaped knob. “Too gloomy out.”

  “You look good.”

  She glanced up, smiled. “Thanks.”

  Aunt Wren nodded slowly. “Rested for a change. A hell of a lot better than you looked last week. Did you have a nice time at the book club?”

  “I did,” she said, and heard the surprise in her own voice. The meeting would have been worthwhile, even if it had just served as a diversion and kept her from remembering last year—and from thinking about Jane Cannon. But between that discussion about love and how funny Ran was, it had turned out better than she’d expected. The girls had even invited Maggie to go out with them afterward—to check out a friend’s new apartment.

  She’d mumbled an excuse. She wasn’t ready for anything like that. But the meeting had been nice.

  “Excellent,” Wren said. “Good to make some friends around here. You must be missing your old ones.”

  Sara Wood immediately came to Maggie’s mind. This annoyed her. She should have thought about Shayna and Jen instead. Sara wasn’t a friend. She’d abandoned Maggie—and not only at that disastrous party. After the party, too. When the police had questioned Sara and the college had gotten involved and the battle had started, every person in Carlton, including Sara Wood, had taken a side.

  And she didn’t take mine. Maggie shook her head. She still couldn’t believe it—couldn’t get why.

  Don’t think about it. Hugging herself, she turned quickly and crossed the room to a shelf of finished vases. She forced herself to focus on them. “Your supply’s dwindling.”

  “Sam’s been busy shipping and delivering.”

  She nodded. She hadn’t seen Sam since she’d helped him clear out the apartment … on the day she’d met Linnie. Maggie frowned out the window at the gray lake.

  “What are you thinking about?” the aunt asked.

  “Linnie.”

  “Hmm.” She slipped her hands into a bucket of water and began to rub off the porcelain. Around her wrists, the clay made her skin look like the cracked surface of a dry riverbed. “That girl had a rough start, saw some bad things happen to her mom.” She dried her hands on the towel hanging off the work stand and added quietly, “And experienced some ugly shit herself.” She wagged her head. “To know love and safety early on? I don’t think we can overestimate the power of that, how it gives a person a steady foundation and the means to handle trials later.” Her smile was sad. “You had that. That’s partly why you pulled through last year like you did—with moxie. It was kind of remarkable, that strength.”

  Maggie didn’t know what to say. She was astonished. First Linnie, and now Wren—another person pointing out her strength. How ironic that that was their impression—the opposite of her own. By the end of the school year, she’d felt utterly flattened, sapped, wrecked. Scared and scarred.

  The aunt was saying, “… and that business with her mom went on for eight years. By the time social services got involved, Linnie was too troubled to last in any one foster home. She got shuffled from place to place.”

  “Four in all,” Sam said.

  Maggie jumped.

  He was standing in the doorway to the mixing room.

  “You startled me,” Maggie said, her hand pressed to her chest.

  “Sorry, Meg.”

  “Maggie.” Wren rolled her eyes. “For the love of God, Sam, learn my niece’s name.”

  He smiled sheepishly and palmed a plastic bag of blue powder, as if he were weighing it. His smile wilted. Eyeing the chemical, he murmured, “Poor Linnie. Two of the foster placements were shitholes. They came with their own unique crappiness.” He blew a sigh and tossed his head. Briskly, to Maggie: “Didn’t think you’d find me here, working on a Sunday, did you? Your aunt’s a tyrant.”

  Wren smirked. “Sam’s helping me catch
up.”

  “I didn’t see your truck out back,” Maggie said to him.

  “Pickup’s in the shop. I walked.” She must have continued to look surprised, because he smiled. “I’m not that out of shape. It only takes ten minutes.”

  “Didn’t you know Thomas is my neighbor?” the aunt asked. “That’s how we got to know each other. When I bought this place—back in the good old days when my sculptures were raking in cash—the Blakes were relieved. There had been some talk in town about using this property for a casino, of all things. Sam’s folks were glad I purchased it.”

  “Grateful,” he said.

  She smiled. “We became fast friends. Muriel and I used to take yoga together. She was an artist, too. We even collaborated on some projects.” The aunt gazed distractedly at the teapot body on the wheel and then, with a little shake of her head, picked up the wire tool and ran it under the pot.

  “They liked to co-mother,” Sam said with a lopsided smile, “the two taking turns telling me what to do.”

  Aunt Wren sniffed. “You were a handful.”

  “I kept you busy.” He raised the small bag. “We’re low on cobalt carbonate. Want me to add it to the order?”

  She nodded. “And chromium oxide. I need to marble some clay.”

  Maggie wandered to the windows. She considered both ends of the stretch of beach, the short bluff and the long. “Which side is yours?”

  Sam went to stand beside her. “We’ve got a little beach west of here. Nothing like Wren’s. Mostly what we have is that.” He pointed to the long end, where the low cliff jutted over the water. “Devil’s Tongue, it’s called. Dad has an awesome old map from the early nineteenth century, with that name scrawled across the bluff, along with ‘Vile Graveyard of Many Ships.’ The reefs go for almost a mile into the lake. They fucked up the barges and boats coming in.”

  “Sank them?”

  “Or trapped them. The visible part of the bluff’s scary enough, rocky and steep. Not worth investigating—believe me, I’ve tried—and no point, really. The fishing there sucks.”

  “So the bluff is yours?”

  He shrugged. “As much as something like that can belong to anyone.”

  Maggie studied the peninsula. Devil’s Tongue. A good name for a dangerous place.

  * * *

  Later, Maggie drifted outside. The sun, which hadn’t bothered to show up all day, made a belated appearance in the evening—a beautiful entrance, swollen and sinking in a pool of pink and violet. Now it rested, like a golden fruit, on the end of the rocky bluff.

  A wind unfurled off the lake and made her shiver. Drawing the cardigan more tightly across her chest, she considered what Sam had mentioned about Devil’s Tongue and then thought about what her aunt had said before that—about Linnie, about Maggie …

  Strong. It was nice that anyone would see her in that way.

  She just didn’t think it was true. How could it be? Her mind was falling apart. Falling back … whenever and wherever. She couldn’t keep her head on straight.

  Plus, if Maggie were really strong, she wouldn’t leave Jane Cannon hanging. She’d write back and help her. Even if the helping hurt.

  * * *

  But she didn’t.

  Dread kept her away from her phone. It kept her up most of the night, too.

  On Monday morning, she ignored her exhaustion and threw herself into another cleaning frenzy. Starting at the top of the cabin, she scrubbed the windows; took down light fixtures, giving them a good washing before refastening them to the sockets; and did not think about Jane Cannon. She wasn’t up to worrying about the girl. I just can’t get into that shit right now. Maybe she’d be ready eventually. At some point. But not today. Sorry, Jane.

  She reached her last room, the kitchen, by midafternoon, and got to work, just as Sam’s truck roared out of the driveway.

  The aunt was in there, sipping a cup of coffee. “He’s picking up Kate from school,” she explained.

  “His truck’s fixed?” Maggie had spotted it first thing this morning, parked in its usual location behind the cabin.

  Wren nodded, smiling wryly at the bucket of cleaning supplies and rags. “I can always tell when you’re trying to avoid something. You start cleaning like crazy.” Her smile widened when she took in Maggie’s expression. “Am I right?”

  She answered with a noncommittal sniff and stepped onto a chair to reach the pendant light over the table.

  “Thought so,” the aunt murmured.

  “I didn’t confirm your theory.”

  “No need.” Wren sauntered out of the room.

  She made a face and began to loosen the little screws. A layer of furry grime covered the glass shade. “Your fixtures are disgustingly dirty,” she said loudly.

  The aunt’s laugh drifted in from the hallway.

  * * *

  Later in the day, while Maggie and Wren were finishing supper, Sam returned to the cabin, Kate in tow. “She said she missed you,” he told Wren.

  “But not her.” His daughter pointed at Maggie.

  “Kate,” Sam scolded. “Be nice. She’s nice to you.”

  The girl shrugged. “But she’s not my mother,” she declared warningly.

  Maggie flared her eyes at her plate of buttered noodles. Thank God.

  The aunt chuckled, sat back in her chair, and hoisted Kate onto her lap. She gave her a bear hug, then bounced her on her knees. “Want to play with the clay? Want to make something?”

  “A piggy bank.”

  “A piggy bank? That might be tricky. How about a bowl? For your Froot Loops? Would you like that?”

  “Yes!” Kate clapped, then pitched forward and squealed when Wren tickled her.

  Maggie poked at her pasta with her fork and took in the laughing exchange with a bitter sensation. “Can I make something, too?” she blurted.

  Wren, Sam, and Kate turned to stare at her blankly.

  “Well, sure,” the aunt said. “I mean, yeah. Why not? If you want to.”

  Maggie was miffed. Jeez. Rein in the enthusiasm, why don’t you? Swallowing her irritation, she got to her feet. “I’ll go change.”

  “Put on something you don’t mind getting stained,” the aunt suggested. “Red iron oxide is murder on clothes.”

  * * *

  “Mine are bigger than yours,” Kate said.

  The little girl was standing by the wheel and coolly eyeing Maggie’s … bowl? Cup? Hollowed-out blob? Maggie slouched over the wheel, raised a limp hand to shove away a curl that had escaped her braid, and then, remembering the current state of that hand, dropped it to her lap instead. It didn’t matter if she left a splat on her jeans. They were filthy.

  The pot, big enough to hold a strawberry, three blueberries, max, was the single outcome of two hours of repeated failures. This one would have gone the mushy way of the others if the aunt hadn’t taken pity on her and provided some hands-on assistance.

  Maggie couldn’t believe how horrible she was at this. “I suck.”

  “That’s not a nice word,” Kate said, circling the table where she’d put her finished creations: three—three!—pots.

  “Sorry. Awful. I’m awful.”

  Sam shrugged. “Why do you think I never wheedle wheel time out of Wren?”

  “You’re not a potter?” Maggie asked.

  “I like to think of myself as a sculptor. This though…” He flapped a hand over the wheel and shook his head.

  “It gets easier with practice,” Wren said, “just like everything else.”

  “I thought it’d be relaxing,” Maggie said, arching her sore back.

  “Ha. Not at first.” The aunt scraped a pile of mangled clay off Maggie’s work stand. “Later, like years later, when you’re really good”—she spread the wet clay on a wedging board—“you might begin to feel all Zen and meditative and one with the world, but early on, you’re mostly—”

  “Frustrated,” Sam suggested.

  “Humbled,” Maggie said.

  Ka
te grimaced at Maggie’s pot. “Bad.”

  With a laugh, Sam rose. “Come on, Kate. We need to get you washed up. It’s a school night.”

  After the two left, Maggie carried the tools to the sink, turned on the faucet, and rubbed the clay off a pin tool.

  The aunt was reshelving some of her pieces in a plastic-lined cabinet to make room for Kate’s and Maggie’s pots. She had two of these cabinets—damp boxes, she’d called them. Wren smiled over her shoulder. “Did you have fun?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t foresee a future as a wealthy potter.”

  “There’s no such thing as a wealthy potter.”

  “You’re doing okay, aren’t you?”

  “I’m staying afloat. But even in this poor part of New York, lakefront property costs a ton in taxes. My real bread and butter are the sculptures.”

  Maggie glanced at the larger damp box. It was closed, but behind the front curtain of heavy plastic, there was a murky shadow. She’d noticed it before. A sculpture, it looked like. Why wasn’t it finished yet? Was Aunt Wren even working on it? Maggie never saw it out of the cabinet. She turned back to the sink to rinse the sponge and chamois. After squeezing them dry, she reached for the soiled bucket.

  What a huge mess for one ridiculous little pot. “I didn’t think throwing on the wheel would be so hard.” In fact, when the arrangements for this visit had been made, she’d figured pottery was exactly what she’d be doing. No doubt her mother had expected that, too: Maggie would heal, strengthen, and move forward with the help of clay projects (and quiet and solitude). Granted, Maggie hadn’t thought about the assault—or Jane Cannon, for that matter—while the clay had wobbled and flailed, but that was only because keeping every lump from flying off the wheel had demanded so much concentration. “This isn’t exactly art therapy,” she muttered, shutting off the water.

  The aunt grinned. “Is that what you thought you’d be getting here?”

  Maggie gave her a dark look.

  Wren sputtered a laugh. She finished shelving the pots, then carefully brought down the folds of heavy plastic.