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She stands up, pushing her chair from the table. “Either way, we have stuff to load in the kiln,” she tells me as she walks down the hall, me trailing on her heels.

“Veda, ple—”

“And I want to teach you some hand-building techniques,” she says over me. “I realized last week when you left with six bowls I haven’t taught you how to do anything other than throw—can you believe that?” She steps into the sunroom.

“Veda!” I shout, making her hear me.

She stops.

“Veda,” I repeat, this time softly to her back. “What is going on?”

Her shoulders droop. She turns to face me, slow.

“Birdie,” she starts, narrowing her eyes just slightly. “I’ve lived a good life and I’m getting older. That’s all it is. It’s the natural ebb and flow of it all.” She smiles—really this time—and her mismatched beaded earrings jingle when she takes a step. “Now wedge some clay, let’s make something strange today.”

I know she’s deflecting. I open my mouth to explain I could find some way to help if she would just tell me. The look in her eyes stops me. It’s not angry or sad, isn’t the scary hawk-like glare she gave me the first day I met her—it’s desperate. She doesn’t want to talk about it. Being a girl with no mom from a young age to a woman with no kids, husband, or breasts at an adult age, it’s a look I understand well. Some things are more manageable when you lug them alone.

“Fine,” I say. Then without another word, I cut a chunk of clay, wedging it out like she tells me to.

There are things I like about making something out of clay on the wheel—the steadiness of the spinning, the predictability over certain movements on the outcome. The precise steps that are required. It’s soothing. Now that I’ve got the hang of it, I can even say it’s reliable. Tangible steps with a clear goal.

This technique Veda teaches me today is something else. Something unlike me entirely: it’s wild. Veda and I sit rolling coils—long ropes of clay—for hours, lining them on top of one another. She shows me how to connect them with wet clay and shallow cuts, a technique she calls scratch and slip, and how to lay them in different shapes. Instead of perfect symmetry and lines that make sense, this style of pottery is sheer chaos. It is everything I’m not, but for some reason, I love it.

“I want to adopt my neighbor, Huck,” I say, rolling one of the coils like a snail. “But I’m scared that if I die, he’ll be an orphan and have to start all over in foster care.”

She hums in understanding next to me, slowly—shakily—using her palms to press down on her clay.

“And Bo said I could put in my will that he would take him if I died. Which”—a breath rushes out of me in a gust—“is incredible to even offer.” Then I face her. “I guess I’m just wondering if he means it. Or if you think he would resent me? Or regret it?”

Her smile drips with pride. “He means it, Birdie. If Bo says something, he means it.”

I believe her.

Then we fall into a comfortable silence, stacking coils in various shapes and patterns until we have two wonky vases in front of us that have so many holes they will never hold water.

I laugh when I look at them. “Do these look like they are supposed to?”

“They aren’t supposed to look like anything, Birdie—that’s the beauty of it.”

I agree. It feels like beauty even though they look absurd.

“How’d you find pottery?” I ask, filling a bucket up with clean water in the sink.

“I was always artistic, loved painting—watercolor mostly—so I went to art school. I’d never done anything with clay, almost dropped the class after the first day, but there was a cute boy, so I stayed.” She smiles, though it isn’t for me. “And I fell in love—with him and the clay.”

I wipe the table down with a big sponge, the dry clay turning to muddy streaks across the top. “What happened?”

Her smile widens across her timeless face. “The boy, Daniel, didn’t have an artistic bone in his body, but I sat next to him and helped him. I didn’t have experience with the medium, but I was better than him!” She chuckles. “As I taught him, we fell in love between those shelves of art supplies. He took the class on a dare—his friends apparently never believed he’d stick with it. Right before finals he leaned over and whispered, ‘Veda, I wouldhave hated this class if I didn’t fall in love with you.’” Her eyes are wet, but her smile stays.

“Then we got married. I became an art teacher; he went to work for the city. We had Daniel and a good life. I taught art for nearly thirty years before I became a potter full time.”

I wrap our vases in plastic bags as I think of it all. A younger Bo-like kid in a college class he has no business being in. I smile at the image.

Then an idea.

“You know, Veda,” I start. “We’re due for a Forever Fun field trip. Since you’ve assured me there’s nothing wrong with you”—I pause, shooting her a look that silently says,but I don’t believe you,before continuing—“would you be up for hosting it here? Sometime this fall? I’ll clean everything up and take care of everything, I would just need you to tell them what to do—teach them. Something like this would be great with the coils, or like, those little monster sculptures kids make?” I laugh. “There are only two of them right now.”

“When are you thinking?” she asks, considering it as she washes her hands at the big utility sink.