The Sweetness of Salt (17 page)

chapter

39

Over the next few days, I spent most of the morning in front of the wide kitchen wall, laying out a rough copy of the drawing I had done in my notebook. Sophie and I had gone out and bought me real sketching pencils with soft lead. The difference was astounding, both in texture and smoothness. Plus, the new pencils erased much more easily. Which was a good thing. A really good thing, since I erased more than I drew.

My anxiety mounted every time I took a step back and looked at the wall. What was I thinking? Did that look like a tree or a dying plant? But the quiet thrill that jolted through me each time I stepped back up to it with a new eye, a clearer idea, was unlike anything else I’d felt before.

I kept going.

Drawing.

Erasing.

Drawing some more.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” I bit my lip, waiting for Aiden to answer. Sophie had gone somewhere with Lloyd to pick out more tile for the roof, which meant I had a free afternoon. Aiden had fashioned a rough sort of seat for me out of an upside-down milk crate and a throw pillow so I could sit and watch him work. Just now, he had successfully centered a piece of clay and was beginning the process of forming it.

He nodded, not taking his eyes off his hands. “Go ahead.”

“If it’s too personal—I mean, if it upsets you or anything, just…”

“Don’t worry about it.” He cut me off, squinting at the flat clay rim. “Just ask.”

“Are your mom and dad…I mean, are they divorced? You said you lived here with your dad, but you’ve never mentioned your mom.”

“My mother died a few years ago.” Aiden volunteered this bit of information with such aplomb that I almost gasped.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Thanks,” Aiden said. “Dad and I have pretty much come to grips with it now, but it was awful for a while. It was sudden—a car accident right outside of Manchester. Middle of the night. Real dark. Rainy. Route 30 is super narrow. No lights. They said she was killed on impact. I doubt the truck even saw her coming.”

“God,” I whispered.

Aiden rested his hands on his lap and looked at me. “You ever know someone who died?”

I hesitated for a split second, and then shook my head. “No.”

“It’s so weird,” he said. “For the longest time—months!—I thought I was stuck in some kind of bad dream. Like I was asleep and I couldn’t wake up. Have you ever had that kind of sensation?”

I nodded. Some days, like the one on Main Street, when Sophie had been so close to telling me, had felt like that. It was hard to shake. Harder still to forget.

“The call came in the middle of the night,” Aiden went on, “and I remember Dad waking me up so we could go to the hospital, but none of it felt real. Even when the sun came up the next day and then the day after that, it still didn’t feel real. It just felt like…I don’t know. Impossible. It didn’t…fit, like someone was trying to ram a puzzle piece into our life that didn’t fit. And even though it was too big, too wide, too friggin’ ridiculous, it still kept trying to push its way in.”

He shook his head.

“Did it ever fit?” I asked softly. “I mean, did it ever start to become real?”

Aiden nodded slowly. “I went down to the gorge and camped out by myself for a week. I had to get away from Dad. He was a mess. He’d come home with his pockets filled with all those rocks, you know? He wasn’t making anything out of them then; just collecting them. He’d come home and empty hundreds of them out of his pockets onto the dining room table and then sit there with his head in his hands for the rest of the night. It was making me crazy. So one day I just packed up my shit and went down to the gorge.”

“And being there, down by the water, made it real for you?”

“Not right away,” Aiden said. “It was October, so for the first three or four days I just sat in front of the fire, freezing my ass off and telling myself that I was cool with everything.” He paused, starting the wheel a little, cupping his hands protectively around the little piece of clay. “And then on the last night, I was lying in my sleeping bag, looking up at the stars, which was something my mom and I used to do all the time. Except that I couldn’t see any stars. Not a single one. It was cloudy, so they must’ve all been hidden.” He shook his head. “It was just so
dark
. Like all the lights in the whole world had gone out. I have never in my life felt so alone. And right then I felt my mother’s absence for the first time. I knew that night that she was gone. For real.”

“Oh, Aiden.” I put my hand on his arm.

“No, it was good,” he said. “It was what I needed. Before, I was walking around in a kind of cloud. Not really seeing or feeling or hearing anything. None of it was real. When I felt that…thing rip through me like that, I knew I was going to be okay again. Because I could feel it. Even though it hurt, I could feel it. And that was so much better than not feeling anything at all.” He laughed. “I went a little wacky after that, too, running under the waterfall, howling up at the moon like a wolf, screaming and yelling like a banshee.” He winced a little. “I don’t know. Realizing she was gone hurt more than anything in the world, but it felt good to get myself back too.”

A silence settled in between us then; the only sound was the soft whir of the pottery wheel.

“How is your dad with it now?” I asked finally. “I mean, was he able to come to grips with it too? Like you?”

“He’s…better.” Aiden frowned, thinking. “I think the stone things he makes helps him. My mom used to collect little things like that, especially when we went to the beach. She’d take these long walks and come back with the front of her shirt filled with pieces of beach glass and shells and things.” He shrugged. Something passed over his face and then disappeared again. “We haven’t been back to the beach since she died,” he said. “But I think it helps Dad to keep collecting things for her.”

I had to restrain myself from reaching out and hugging him.

Instead, I picked at the skin along the edge of my thumb and didn’t say anything more. Neither did Aiden.

The late afternoon light waned along the horizon, a pale curtain settling over the curve of blue. And when the shadows lengthened across the road and the church bell sounded its evening knell, I said good-bye and walked back to Sophie’s.

chapter

40

I took a long bath that night, soaking in Sophie’s claw-foot tub with the raised sides and curled edges. It wasn’t very clean, and the metal soap dish was rusted on the bottom, but the water was warm and sudsy and smelled good, like coconut cream. My mind drifted back to Aiden, and the conversation we’d had earlier. “
It felt good to get myself back too
.” What a concept, getting yourself back. What did that even mean? And why, if I didn’t understand it, did it keep resonating so deeply with me?

I slid under a pile of suds as a faint knock sounded on the door. “Julia?”

“I’m in the tub!”

“I know you’re in the tub,” Sophie said. “I heard you running the water. Can I come in?”

I leaned forward, scooping more suds over the exposed parts of my body, and then sat back again. “Okay.”

Sophie walked in. She was holding a plate of something that looked like pale brownies in one hand. “I just made a batch of blondies. I want to sell them in the store, but I need you to tell me what you think first. I’m not sure I added enough chocolate.”

I took a small bite of one as Sophie settled herself into a corner and set the plate down next to her. “Ooh, I love them!” I took another bite. “Why do you call them blondies?”

Sophie pulled out her cigarettes. “They’re the same idea as a brownie, except reversed. Less chocolate. More cake.”

“Well, I want another one. And if you had these in the store, I would buy at least two dozen.”

“Awesome.” Sophie grinned and offered the plate to me again. I took two this time.

“Aren’t you going to have one?” I asked.

“I already did,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “I’m blondied out.”

I chewed thoughtfully, watching her smoke. “Do you smoke in front of Goober?”

“Absolutely not.” Sophie peeled a bit of tobacco off the tip of her tongue. “Never have, never will.”

I settled my head back against the tub. A faint water stain, like a splash of old coffee, shaded the far corner in the ceiling. “Well, I’m glad. She doesn’t need to see you doing that.”

Across the room, my sister’s voice bristled. “I agree,” she said. “That’s why I don’t.”

An uncomfortable moment passed between us. Then I sat up and looked directly at her. Tiny wisps of hair stuck out from behind her ears. “Have you ever been in love?” I said finally. “I mean
really
in love?”

Sophie’s fingers, which were just poised to take the cigarette out of her mouth, froze for a second. Then she smiled. “Yes.”

“With who?”

“Eddie Waters,” Sophie said.

“Eddie?” I stared at her wide eyed. “From high school? Really?”

Sophie tilted her head back against the wall. “Oh God, I adored Eddie. Every single thing about him, right down to the last black curly hair on his stomach. I would have gone to the ends of the earth and back for that boy.”

“But…but you treated him like garbage!” I spluttered. “I was there! I remember. You were so mean to him all the time!”

Sophie looked down at the floor. The bib of her denim overalls was freckled with flour. “I know. I was. I was horrible to him. But I loved him. God, I loved him with my whole heart. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anybody else like that since.”

“Why were you so mean to him if you loved him?” I was genuinely flabbergasted. “I mean, it must have ended because of all the things you did to him, right? All those things you said, how you acted. He couldn’t take it any—”

“I know,” Sophie interrupted. “Don’t you think I know, Julia?”

I settled back a little. “I just…I don’t understand.”

Sophie shrugged. She took a long drag of her cigarette and then tilted her head back, letting it stream out again from between her lips. “I don’t know why I acted like that either. Eddie treated me like a princess. And I just…” She paused as a shiver ran across her shoulders. “I don’t know. I couldn’t stand it. It didn’t feel right, being treated well like that. I didn’t deserve it.”

“Why?” I was incredulous. “What did you ever do to not deserve being loved?”

Sophie looked over at me all of a sudden. Her eyes were shiny, the bottoms rimmed with tears. She took another brusque drag of her cigarette and then brushed off the front of her overalls. “Who knows?” Her voice had changed completely. It was callous now, annoyed. “I mean, who knows why people do anything they do, right?”

You do, I wanted to say.

You know why, Sophie.

“Was it because of what happened?” I asked. “With Maggie?”

Sophie shrugged. “Oh God. You can blame everything on your childhood these days, can’t you? I mean, I don’t know. Maybe a little. Mostly I think I was just an angry, unhappy person about everything back then. And I took it out on everyone else because I didn’t know what to do with it. Poor Eddie got the worst of it.”

“We did too,” I said softly. “It wasn’t just Eddie you were mean to. It was all of us. At home.”

Sophie stared at me for a few weighted seconds. Then she blinked. She stood up, took one last drag of her cigarette and threw it in the toilet. I looked straight ahead as she walked out, listened as the heavy thump of her boots against the floor got fainter and fainter down the hallway. Had I actually thought my sister was going to apologize for her behavior back then? Did I want her to? Would it change anything?

I slid all the way underwater then, staring up at the ceiling through the sheet of warm liquid until I had to come back up for air. I did it once more. And then again. The fourth time I went under, I opened my mouth and let out a yell. Just a little one. Enough so that bubbles came out of my mouth and I could hear the warped sound reverberating in my ears. I came up for air, gasping. And then I took a deep breath and went under once more. This time, I blocked my ears, squeezed my eyes shut, and screamed until I ran out of air.

chapter

41

“What was your mom like?” I was over at Aiden’s again. It was a quiet afternoon, the air cool and windy. He was working on a new piece, something small, almost fully formed.

Next to Aiden’s eye, a tiny muscle moved. “Well,” he said after a moment. “She was an artist.”

“Really? A potter, like you?”

He shook his head. “No, she painted. Watercolors, mostly. Some oils. She had a studio down in Manchester where she sold a lot of her work. We have a few framed ones in the house still. Dad put them up after she died. She’d never let us hang any of her stuff when she was around. She hated looking at her work.”

“Why?”

Aiden shrugged. He was up on his feet now, one hand submerged into the cavity of the clay, the other guiding it from the outside. The inside was getting wider and wider by the second. It looked like a vase, but I knew that with just a slight shift of his hand, it could turn into anything.

“I think a lot of artists are like that,” he said. “My mom had a friend who was an author. Hell of a good writer. I read all his stuff, and I’m not even a reader. Anyway, we had him over for dinner one night and he told us that he’s never read one of his books all the way through. Not one. When I asked him why, he said he just couldn’t bring himself to do it; that he knew he’d find a million spots in the book where he should’ve done this or should’ve said that. It’d drive him crazy to see all the mistakes he’d made, mistakes that he couldn’t do anything about anymore.” He shrugged. “I think Mom was the same way.”

“Wow,” I said softly. “If I was that good at something, I can’t imagine never wanting to look at it again.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you’re a perfectionist, I guess,” Aiden said. “Nothing’s ever really good enough. And if nothing’s ever good enough, then what’s the point of looking at it, right?”

I kept my eyes on the vase—or pot, or whatever it was. The piece was much bigger than I originally thought it would be. Aiden had started off with a lump of clay the size of a fist, but it had transformed into nearly double its size. “She was really fun too,” he said suddenly. “She had this weird kind of laugh—sort of like a giggle that would go up real high and then come back down again. It made you laugh, just hearing it.”

“Did you guys do things together? Just you and her?”

He nodded. “She loved the quad. When I was little, she took me all over the place on it. Then when I learned how to drive it, I’d take her. She’d put her arms around me and hold on real tight and say, ‘Take us to the moon, Aiden. Go on, take us to the moon.’”

“The moon?”

He smiled. “It was just her way of telling me to go wherever I wanted. As far as I wanted.”

“Did you ever get lost?”

He nodded. “God, lots of times. That was the best part.”

“Why?”

He sat back down slowly, still angling his fingers along the inside of the piece. “Who wants to know where they’re going all the time? That’s boring. When you get lost, you see things you never knew were there in the first place.”

The wheel was slowing down. Aiden’s fingers slowed with it, tapping the sides gently until it came to a complete stop. My eyes widened as I stared at the perfect little bowl—no bigger around than an orange. “It’s so cute!” I said. “But what’re you going to eat out of that? It’s so small!”

“It’s not for eating,” Aiden said. “It’s a different kind of bowl. For something else.”

“Like what?”

“You’ll see.” He looked at it for a moment, and then leaned in and touched the rim again, very lightly, with the pad of his index finger. “There,” he said. “Perfect.”

Aiden put the tiny bowl on a shelf next to another bowl and a small vase. “This is where I leave everything to dry,” he explained. “It takes a few days.” He walked over to what looked like a large black canister in the corner of the patio and checked a tiny thermometer attached to one side. “This is the kiln. There’s a vase in there I’m firing.” He picked up a small bowl and dipped his fingers into it. “And now that it’s reached 1660 degrees, I can salt glaze it.”

“What’s that?”

Aiden held up the bowl. “Watch.” He pinched a small amount of salt between his fingers and deposited it through a hole at the top of the kiln. There were actually many holes along the rim, tiny rectangular openings, and Aiden moved from one to the next, sprinkling fingerfuls of salt through them. “Salt does amazing things to clay,” he said. “The crystals actually explode when they hit the heat, and then turn into a vapor. It’s the vapor that transforms the look of the clay.”

“How?” I asked. “What’s it do?”

“It makes the clay glossy, and the surface gets this sort of orange-peel texture. But the really cool thing about salt glazing is that no two pieces ever look the same. Each one is completely unique, depending on how much or how little salt you use.”

“Who taught you how to do all this?” I asked.

Aiden shrugged. “My mom got me lessons when I was about twelve. That was where I learned all the basics.”

“So…” I paused. “I mean, did they tell you you should be a potter?”

Aiden looked at me curiously. “Tell me to be a potter?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, did they see that you were good at it and tell you that that’s what you should do?”

Aiden’s face took on a blank quality. “They encouraged me to do it. But they didn’t tell me that I should be a potter.” He laughed. “Actually, though, I made it easy for them. After I found pottery, I didn’t want to do anything else.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever try anything else?”

“You mean like accounting?” Aiden grinned.

I shrugged. “Anything.”

“No,” he said. “But I didn’t have to. Pottery’s my thing. It’s always been my thing.” He paused. “How about you? You have a thing?”

School. Being smart. Grades. Or maybe—possibly—drawing.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” he repeated. “It ain’t your thing if you say maybe.”

How were you supposed to know? Apparently I didn’t possess that gut-feeling thing that Zoe did. So how did it work? Was someone going to show up eventually and tell me? “Julia Anderson, your thing is law.” Or, “Julia Anderson, your thing is sketching.”

“Okay,” Aiden said. “I’ll bite. What is it?”

I stared at the orangish blue flames behind the tiny peepholes of the kiln. “Well, I’m majoring in prelaw. In college, I mean.”

“So law’s your thing, then?”

“Yeah.” And then, “I mean no. No. It’s not.”

Aiden looked over at me.

“No.” My voice was firmer. “No. It’s definitely not.”

“So you’re doing it because…” Aiden gestured with his hand, indicating that I should go on.

I looked over Aiden’s head at the trees, raised like a green arch behind him. A large shadow on the right obscured most of the leaves, but on the left, where the sun was bright, I could see them perfectly. Some hung limp and flat; others were curled over slightly, just at the tips, like shy little girls.

“Julia?” Aiden’s voice was soft.

“I don’t know.” I lowered my eyes so I was looking at Aiden again. “I honestly don’t know anymore.”