Page 116

Birdie, we need to talk about this.

Is this going to require a list?

I roll my eyes. Because what does he think? I’m just going to go over there and hang out with him and hiswife? He can’t be that delusional.

Part of me wants to tell him to piss off, and part of me wants to beg him to come over and fix it. The two extremes tell me the best response is none.

The week after Veda’s funeral, I force myself to go to her cabin on a morning like I would be if she was still alive. When I walk inside, it’s unchanged. Same earthy, wet smell. Same colorful blankets and gauzy curtains. Like any minute she’s going to walk out of her room, hair pinned back in a tight bun, and order me to go wedge some clay.

It’s empty. Quiet. Her echo.

When I get to the sunroom, I feel her. Hear her.

My eyes land on two bowls on a shelf—the last ones she made months ago. They have been sitting wrapped tightly in plastic bags, still too wet for the kiln. I pick one up and I’m instantly flooded with emotion. Vibrating with it.

I miss her and I’m mad at her, both with a rawness I’ve never known.

Using my arm like a bat, I swing it at one of the bowls—still in the bag—and send it off the shelf to the ground with a cry. Without thinking, I do the same thing to the other one. This time, with a louderAhhh!and tears that fill my eyes.

When all that’s left is silence, I realize instantly what I’ve done—destroyed her final pieces like a fool—and pick them up.I open the bags; each pot sits in five to a dozen jagged pieces. My heart sinks as fresh tears well.

I’ve ruined yet another precious thing.

Then I think of my dad. Of his busted cookie slab and the Japanese method ofkintsugi. I think of broken things becoming beautiful again. The cracks becoming the coveted.

With a long exhale, I vow to put them back together, somehow, though I have no idea how it’s possible.

Pulling a big plastic tub out from under the table called a damp box that helps keep unfinished pieces wet or rehydrate dry pieces, I add water and put all the broken pieces inside, snapping the lid on and praying for a miracle.

I debate going home, but I hate the idea more than I hate being here without her, so I open a fresh bag of clay. I cut a hunk off with a piece of wire, and wedge it, Veda’s commanding instructions whispering in my ear.

At the table, I roll out a slab, long and flat, before wrapping it into an asymmetrical cylindrical vase. The seam is obvious, a scar, but I leave it, lining it with flowers.

I work for five hours, only stopping to cry or use the bathroom, before it’s finished.

It’s beautiful—different—even in wet clay. I know it’s the best thing I’ve made.

I put a plastic bag over it so it doesn’t dry out, clean up my space with a wet sponge, and lock the front door. When I leave, it’s as if I was never there at all.

Forty-eight

The broken pieces ofthe bowls I smashed are rehydrated enough to be pliable again, and I carefully spread them across the worktable the next day.

I don’t have gold like they used in traditionalkintsugi, and the epoxy my dad uses with his slabs of wood won’t work, but I do have slip,clay glueas Veda always called it.

Scooping some of it into a bowl, I mix in some underglaze—a special slip-based glaze that can be used before the piece has been fired. I pick a shade of pink, mixing enough into the slip that it turns from muddy grey to a lush rose that reminds me of the flower bushes that bloomed in Veda’s yard in the summer.

With a radio playing all my favorite country songs in the background, I start to piece the bowls back together like a puzzle, pink slip bulging out of the cracks. I fall into a rhythm, singing along with the lyrics I know by heart, trying to make the broken beautiful.It doesn’t make sense, but hands in the clay, I’m compelled to create the sadness right out of me.

Luke Combs starts singing “Fast Car,” and I turn the music up—loud enough to drown out my thoughts—and sing along loudly, losing myself in the lyrics and how I piece the pot together.

One piece turns to two, turns to—

“Birdie?”

My own name makes me jump, jerking to face the doorway.

Wearing blue jeans, a canvas Carhartt jacket, and a green beanie pulled over his ears with his hair curling out from the bottom, Bo walks into the sunroom.