Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

“And puppies at Todd’s work are better when your house is full of grizzlies.”

  “Truth.”

  “I wonder why Jadis wasn’t happy living in a forest with talking fauns.”

  “Good wonder to have, bro.”

  Nineteen

  When I was ten, Jake took me out on a frozen inlet. It looked solid but I felt the shifting and hurried, jelly-legged, back onto solid ground. Right now, I feel the cracking but can’t sort which way is shore and which is open water.

  Mum is home from rehab, steady and pinked up. She passes me in the hall, the ratty bathmat balled in her arms. “Oh, Elsie, I had a boy. Seven pounds nine ounces.”

  Perfect, an infant and a half-wit toddler.

  All the walk to school, Mikey clings to me like a fretful squid. “I think Aaron’s sad.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Linda’s a land animal and Aaron’s dolphin needs the ocean. They’re both just coming to terms with the reality that together they make a catfish.”

  We wait on the corner for his hook-up with Wendy, jumping foot to foot to ward off frostbite. His Christmas cough lingers. I hold a hankie to his nose. He lifts his face. Honks hard. “Did you know seahorses can look forward with one eye and backwards with the other?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Do that, okay.”

  “I’ll be extra watchful.”

  He trudges away to connect with Wendy. I cut across the vacant lot. For years, the Packham & Son Haulage truck has been in this spot. I climb into the cab figuring math is less incongruent when I’m de-edged. I light a joint. From my perch, I see Byron Silver round the corner, dressed like a posh Londoner in a peacoat, Doc Martens, and Beatles cap. Cassie Young approaches from the other side. She’s extraordinarily pretty, like Elizabeth Taylor. As they quickstep toward an embrace, a mangy coyote with a winter-coated rabbit in its mouth darts across their path. They both scream.

  Byron jimmies the lock on the office trailer, bowing in a grand gesture as he holds open the door.

  Poor Wendy.

  So, Jasper, if a doctor spawned Byron, what hope is there for me?

  We are not the scum of our parts.

  Your math, I like.

  Twenty

  Tuesday morning, Mikey shrugs into his backpack. “You coming to watch me get my swim badge tonight?”

  “Barring mayhem, I’ll be there.”

  “Did you know dragonflies are born in the water?”

  “Cool.”

  The entire day my water spirit flounders in a school of venomous fish. I don’t bite at the Ari-is-a-selfish-slut bait. I do, however, attack at the volleyball season opener, smashing and spiking to a quick trouncing of Malvern C.I.

  Now I have three glorious hours before going to cheer Mikey. As I head to my nest, the cold is the waking kind that lets a body know it has fingers, nose, and toes. Poetry sparks along my stride, D.H. Lawrence, “Song of a Man Who Has Come Through.”

  In your case, woman coming through.

  “A fine wind is blowing the new direction of time.” Images swirl as I navigate over patchy ice. A winged gift. Jasper, we’ll yield to the fine wind that takes us through the chaos of the world. An exquisite chisel driven by invisible blows.

  “The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder.”

  Oh, I love that line.

  A man passes and the cloying stench of Old Spice splinters in the frigid air. A ghost whispers, There’s Daddy’s good girl. Looking back, I pick up my pace.

  “Hi, Almost-Ari?”

  I spin around, stopping an inch from Byron’s smile.

  “Just the girl I’m looking for.”

  I slip past him.

  He follows. “Hold on.” I dart. He weaves. “I was in the Caymans over Christmas. Brought you something.”

  “No thanks.” I try to shake him in the crowd.

  His grip on my bag stops me short. “It’s just a kitschy souvenir.” His hand opens. On his palm is a clear plastic case. Inside, on a bed of cotton is a tiny seahorse, a real desiccated seahorse.

  “Oh, no. No, no, no, no.” I snap away, run-walking through the pedestrian horde. He’s on my heels like a sheep-herding dog.

  He nabs my braid. “Wait up. Didn’t mean to upset you. Wendy said you loved seahorses.” There’s an unplaceable familiarity to the tilt of his head. “Listen, there’s something you should know.”

  “Let go of my hair.”

  “It’s important. About your sister.” His gloved hand winches up my braid. “Police found something at that church. Come on, you need to see this.”

  Hariet would comply in a blink. The Ari in me roars, “Just leave me the fuck alone!” With all my force, I reclaim my braid. Like the collapse after a tug-of-war, he tumbles backwards, over banked snow. A car rounding the corner connects—with his head.

  “Oh, God.” I scramble, catching him as he staggers up before we both topple down. “Oh, oh, oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no.”

  Someone wads a hat over the bloody mess and forces my hand on it. “Put pressure on. Keep him still. You, there, in the blue. Go to the bakery. Call for an ambulance. Now. Move it!”

  A man, terror-full, says, “He fell right in front of me. Did you see? You saw? You saw?”

  “Stand back. Everyone back!” A badge flashes. A coat falls over Byron. His pupils eclipse pale iris. Lips form, “Our Father,” then still. I continue the prayer for him hoping the Lord will deliver him from this Ari evil.

  Minutes waiting for an ambulance are interminable until helpers whisk him away. My body is ice, my legs frozen. Someone unfolds me like decomposing cardboard. “Are you hurt? Miss?”

  The helping woman says, “She’s in shock. Get her out of the cold.”

  A blanket weights my shoulders. “Did you see what happened, ma’am?”

  “Not sure what I saw. I was behind them along Wellesley. For the length of the block it seemed like she was trying to get away. Then it, it looked like he grabbed her and she—” I fall like spring melt off Skyfish roof when the lady says, “Pushed him?”

  * * *

  I surface in the back of a cruiser. The lady is holding me together through the scream of sirens.

  “Ari, you’re at the hospital. Do you know what day it is?”

  I know I’m on a plastic chair. I know Jasper is spinning. I know I will never be warm again.

  There’s a commotion outside the cubicle. Halpern’s voice rips through the curtain. “What the bloody hell happened? You were supposed to pick her up.”

  “It went down in like ten seconds, sir.” Ten seconds. One second, for that matter, is all it takes to break a life beyond fixing.

  “Can I take her to the station?”

  We’re going to prison, Jasper.

  “Doc says she took a nasty whack.”

  “They locate Byron’s folks yet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Get Irwin here.” Halpern scrapes the curtain along its track. “Ah, Jesus fuck.”

  “I’m so sorry. I—”

  “Stop. No details until Irwin gets here. You know how we can get in touch with this kid’s parents?”

  “No.”

  Unknown minutes later, Halpern prods my gray matter while the Dick sits, pretending to be paternal. “Okay, kid, what happened?”

  Thoughts and words are a jumbled mess as I try to explain what I don’t myself understand. “He grabbed my braid and I . . .”

  “You pushed him?”

  “I made him fall.”

  “Ah, bloody Christ. His dad’s a doctor, where?”

  “Um . . . the children’s hospital? Is he okay?”

  “Critical. Are you keeping anything from me, Ari?”

  “If I am, I don’t know that I am.”

  “Okay. Sit tight. Irwin, you’re
on for another shift.”

  “Yes, sir.” Halpern leaves and the Dick hisses through clenched teeth. “You stupid fucking cunt. A doctor’s kid. Friend of the brass. You’ve never been anything but trouble. Now, everything I’ve worked for is down the crapper.” He grinds his thumb into the dressing on my head and the pain feels—necessary.

  * * *

  When Len died, every waking was a relearning that he was gone. Today, before I open my eyes, I know Hariet Appleton has done the worst thing a human can do. I puke on the clean sheets in Mina’s guest room. She scrambles from her slumber on the chair. “I’m supposed to get you back to hospital if you start vomiting.”

  “No.” My head has taken enough whacks to know it’s my belly, not my brain, causing the upchucking. I sit up, hair dripping bile. “What’s going to happen to Mikey when I go to jail?”

  “You’re not going to jail.”

  “Jillianne got two years for what she did. This is a million times worse.”

  “Her crime was bodily harm committed during a robbery. There was no intent in what happened yesterday.”

  “Yes, there was.” I catch my aching head. “Look how wrecked Nat’s parents are. Byron’s parents . . . Wendy told me they already lost a son.”

  “Oh, Jesus. When?”

  “I don—” I bolt to the bathroom.

  When Nia’s friend, lawyer Sam Lukeman, arrives with Halpern, I’m certain Byron’s dead and I’m headed for Attica, which would be fair after what I’ve done.

  “Is he . . . ?”

  Halpern says, “It’s not good. I won’t lie, doesn’t look good. Still can’t locate his parents. No doctor at the childrens hospital, or any of them that fits. No hits from McGill for a Byron Silver.”

  “Wendy doesn’t know them?”

  “Never went to his house.”

  “Cassie?”

  “Never met his folks.”

  “Doesn’t someone at the police know his dad?”

  “Apparently, Fitzpatrick wrote his placement recommendation. He died in August. Lung cancer.”

  “I can’t believe I did this.”

  “That nurse and my guy at the scene say he was at you.”

  “Your guy at the scene?”

  “Had a dozen cops out looking for you.”

  “Because of Jory?”

  “What? Your sister? No. That Dune book you loaned Natasha landed on my desk yesterday morning.”

  “Like the book?”

  “You print Ari Zajac inside the cover?”

  I nod.

  “Listen, you’re on lockdown ’til we get a handle on this.”

  Twenty-One

  Mikey tells me when a dolphin is wounded, other dolphins circle underneath, lifting it to the surface where it can catch a breath. Mary and Nia arrive at Sabina’s. All the J’s, except June, come. Even Jacquie flies from Poland with my niece, Arielle.

  Girls who push boys into a coma don’t deserve all this fuss. Girls like me don’t deserve workrooms with paint, a bed with soft sheets, and windows to snow falling in moonlight.

  Everyone pushes food in my direction, gentles my stressed hair, and steps around my silence. Even Aunt Nia, who has always set me hunting for the treasures found in dark places, fluffs cotton around me.

  Ellis brings Chinese takeout. Mina brings homework, shaking her head at my face. “That’s a fine mess.” I’m a spectacular bruiser, always have been. The goose egg on my head is down, but a purple fright has leaked around my eye.

  “Did they find anyone who knows him?”

  “They’re tracking leads in Montreal,” Ellis says. “His story appears to be complete fiction.”

  “I used to make up stories all the time about who I was, who my parents were. Kids do that because their real life is shit.” I split an egg roll and what I saw of Byron’s head, before the lady sacrificed her hat, floods back and I hurl in the sink.

  Now I’m like my mum, retching, retching, retching in the toilet. A hand gentles my back and I hear Jillianne’s small sure voice. “I won’t tell you that it ever goes away, but you’ll stand up and take a step away from it, then another.”

  “He’s going to die and it’s my fault.”

  Jacquie forces water into me. Jory promises that the whole mess is in His hands. Jennah braids my hair. Her words, a seeming non sequitur, are most soothing. “Did you know Grandpa Trembley helped build Union Station? I always look up when I walk through, marvelling at how they did that brickwork.” She leans into my ear. “It’s in us sisters to build something spectacular.”

  * * *

  Jennah and Jacquie have always been my mother-sisters, but Jillianne’s secret is what I need. Four years ago, she robbed an old lady, near kicked her into the great beyond. Today, I watch her from the steps dancing with Arielle. She cranks music to the point that the windows vibrate and they move like tambourine ribbons lifted by a wind. The music ends and she sits close beside me. “We are Ari and Anne.”

  “I’ve never felt more like a misspelled Hariet.”

  “You may’ve had the name dumped on you, but you have the power to change it.”

  “It’s not that easy.” I whine.

  “Sure it is. I’m now legally Anne Trembley. Listen, just start with this, when the shame and fear come crashing in, get up and move, turn up the music and dance.” She takes my hand, slipping a small packet into it. “We’re better away from the shit, I know that, but this reset me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Doctors have white pills for the pain, but it can’t reach the metaphysical ache in people like us. You’re the clay girl. It’s a gift from the earth.”

  * * *

  Saturday morning, O’Toole strides into Sabina’s Boutique and takes me to police headquarters. That he doesn’t mess with me means terrible news is about to be delivered—either that or I look less appealing than shit on a shoe. I’ve been eating less than sleeping, and when I do sleep, I’m like the bird who rests half its brain at a time, so it can watch for danger. The bruise is now a muddy puddle on my cheek. My hair has given up the will to curl and is an electrified stress from crown to butt. Len’s lanky cardigan is a futile remedy for the cold that has settled in my core.

  In a room with leather chairs, Halpern, Ellis, and Mina sit at an oak table. Halpern says, “Come in, Ari.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Passed away this morning. Your teachers are here to help with the sorting to come. Sit. Please.” He lights a cigarette. “So, the young man known as Byron Silver is one Billy Smith. Born at the Misericordia Home, March 9, 1949.”

  “In Montreal?”

  “Yes. Adopted by Olive and William Smith. They were farmers. Father died in an accident shortly after. The mother remarried some relation quick to save the farm. The guy was bad news. You know the drill, booze, money trouble. He was in and out of the system for years.”

  He was a throwaway like us, Ari.

  “He’s been holed up over on Palmerston with a senile old lady. Convinced her that he was her great-nephew. Been helping himself to her bank account. And”—he pours water into a paper cup—“it seems Billy Smith, aka Byron Silver, is the Bobbie Story Natasha met in High Park.”

  “What?”

  Halpern fans pages of a steno pad. “We found a whole box of shit like this.”

  My heart skips at the tangential words and doodled pictures filling the pad. They’re just like mine, Jasper.

  Indeed they are, Ari Zajac, aka Hariet Appleton.

  Shu—

  “Ari!” Ellis’s voice cuts through a graying haze. His hand cups my head as I turn liquid and spill to the floor.

  Chewing gum stuck to the underside of the table comes into focus.

  “How’s the perspective?” Mina kneels over me with a cool cloth. “Sit up slowly. Lean against the wall.” I comply as sh
e uncaps a Coke. “Here. Get your blood sugar up.”

  Halpern rolls a chair close. I try to absorb his words, hearing only “smart troubled kid” and “wild imagination.” He tamps my eruption of hair. “You know, Ari, there was nothing pointing to him ’til we got our hand on these notebooks. Seemed the nicest guy you’d ever meet.”

  “Who were his birth parents?”

  “No one who plays into this.”

  “Of course they do.”

  * * *

  After an eight-year absence, my dad is in a dream. Images stick like a web as I surface: my dad painting a high fence with my braid, my sisters sitting on overturned buckets, their golden braids half-red and drying like neglected brushes. A neighbour peering from her yard says, “Your daddy’s the nicest man I ever met.” Night has a way of magnifying fear. Jasper lists: Troubled family. Wild imagination. Non-linear note writer. Is that genetic?

  * * *

  There’s a ball-defying hitch to the Dick’s pants as he enters the boutique, doors he vowed never to darken after the store landed on the Zajac side of Len’s will. He snorts. “Halpern wants to make sure you’re clear that the only thing getting out to the press is you don’t know nothin’ about nothin’. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Christ, when this hits the papers of how he played us, heads are gonna roll. There goes detective.”

  “Spin it.”

  Spittle shoots through his thin lips. “Yeah, right.”

  I channel a pitiful Walter Cronkite imitation: “By gut, grit, and tenacity, crack investigators working ’round the clock zero in on the suspect, keeping him right where they could watch him until a solid case was built. To protect the public, he was under twenty-four-hour surveillance. City saved cost and family spared trauma of trial . . . Blather like that.”

  He whips out a pencil and pad. “Write that down.”

  “Can Mikey and I keep hiding out here? Jennah finagled an aide for Mum.”