nineteen

Nathan lifted the block of magnesium carbonate, otherwise known as chalk, off the back of his truck, staggering even though it only weighed fifty pounds. A blustery wind bent the grass tussocks and yanked the breath out of him.

Zoe appeared on the minuscule porch, dancing from side to side on her toes. She still wore her pajamas. “There you are. You were up and out early today.”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I picked this up for the lichen glaze.”

“I thought you’d bought that already.”

“I could have sworn I had. I’d forgotten that I’d forgotten.”

She dashed toward him, unheeding of the muddy ground that slathered itself all over her feet. The viscous moistness of it on her skin churned Nathan’s stomach. He swallowed against the pressure on his chest that had woken him before dawn. Panting and aching and his hand throbbing all over again. Vague nightmarish images of broken goldfinches and a sensation of restraints. His neck muscles had ached as if he’d struggled to sit up against an unseen force.

Despite his protests, Zoe pulled the block of chalk out of his arms. Slouching under its weight, she carried it toward the house. She spoke loud over the wind. “I’m still bothered by the detective. I don’t understand why he questioned you the other day.”

Nathan followed her muddy footsteps through the house into his studio. Zoe heaved the box onto the old desk next to the birdcage.

“Danny was doing his job,” Nathan said.

“Oh, you know him?” she said. “Outside his work, I mean.”

“Pub. He’s ‘Danny’ to me. No title.”

He opened up a fresh package of clay and sliced off a chunk with the cutting wire. His right hand ached, his knuckles swollen and oozing, but that didn’t stop him from slapping the clay down on a work surface and kneading the bubbles out of it. His body worked on autopilot while his mind drifted away. He enjoyed kneading clay.

“Dad?”

Zoe’s voice startled him out of his reverie. The light in the room had shifted. Zoe now perched on a box of clay that sat in the corner of the room. She held a cup of tea.

“I heard the detective mention Elder Joe before he banished me from the room.” Zoe spoke from the middle of a thought Nathan had missed. He shaped the clay into a squat round cylinder and centered it in the middle of the wheel.

“He wanted your alibi, didn’t he?”

Nathan’s hands froze within the plastic container of slip that stood beside the wheel. The clay slurry stung his raw knuckles. The burning sensation felt good, numbing him.

“You were in bed,” Zoe said. “I saw you myself when I woke up to go to the loo.”

He slept with his door closed, so to see him, she’d have had to check on him. He wasn’t sure which was worse: his daughter checking on him or his inability to remember whether he was in bed or not the night Elder Joe died.

He turned on the wheel and dribbled slip water on the clay as the wheel head gained speed. He cupped his hands over the clay, feeling its satiny smoothness. Malleable to the lightest of pressures. He narrowed the circle of his hands, pulling up so that the mound of clay rose into a slender cylinder. The clay was his to manipulate into a vase, a mug, a bowl. Whatever would serve him best.

He shifted his hands to assert downward pressure. The column flattened into a disk. He inserted his thumbs into the center of the shape and felt the clay part under their pressure. Easy now, use less force.

“You checked on me?” he said.

“Of course, I always do, because half the time you’re not asleep. Sometimes we talk. You really don’t remember?”

“No, but I am asleep. Please don’t talk to me when I’m in that state.”

“Don’t be silly. You hardly talk otherwise.”

He steadied his hands and forced himself not to dwell on the words that slipped out of his mouth while he was asleep. The fact of it scared the shite out of him.

He widened the hole in the center of the clay and eased out the sides. Easy does it. If he wasn’t careful he could stretch the clay too thin, too fast. Safer to use slow, consistent pressure.

“Danny was curious about something you said,” Nathan said.

“What an odd thing, these murder investigations. Poking around everywhere.”

Nathan lightened up on his thumbs. It wouldn’t do to push too deep. He dribbled more slip water onto the emerging bowl. “You mentioned secrets. He wanted to know what you meant by that.”

He placed one hand along the outside of the bowl and, using the thumb of his other hand, continued to hollow out the inside and raise the sides. Balanced pressure.

Zoe’s footsteps padded toward him. She stood behind his shoulder, monitoring his progress but careful not to touch him. He was off limits while at the wheel. He glanced at his drying shelves, filled with pots ready for their bisque firing. He’d been at the wheel more often lately.

“I’m sorry,” Zoe said. “It popped out. You’re tired and distracted, and you lose track of time.” She pointed to the magnesium carbonate. “And you’re forgetful.”

Nathan kept his hands in place, with no pressure. The sides of the bowl slid against his skin.

She sighed. “It would be best if we didn’t have secrets, that’s all.”

Yet secrets were the basis of their relationship.

He applied the lightest of pressures against the side of the bowl. “I understand, but there’s something else—about Bijou. The cut on her paw that you said was as good as new. You didn’t—?”

His thumb broke through the clay. The bowl collapsed. Too hard. Shite.

Her silence stretched out behind him, as thin as the clay that had split open. Nathan busied himself scraping the wheel clean with the wire cutter.

“Dad,” she said.

One word, but it was enough to convey her disappointment. She knew he was incapable of loving her as a father should. It was the secret that didn’t need revealing.