The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series) (11 page)

“Good morning,” said Abby.

“Oh, Good morning.”

“I saw you out here.”

“I was here, here I am.”

“I mean I couldn’t sleep
either.
 
I watched the sun come up
from the house and saw you were out here, early,” said Abby.

“Oh yea, well you know, you get
old, you’re up early.”

“I saw you talking to the her
willow.”

“I’m a crazy old man.
 
I mumble I guess.”

“I came out here to ask you
something, if it’s alright?”

“Ask away.”

Abby turned to her father and then
toward the lake and asked, “What do you talk to her about?”

Will looked at Abby then toward to
the lake.
 
He pulled out his pack of
cigarettes.

“You want to know what I tell
her.”
 
Will paused and lit a
cigarette.
 
“I know you probably
think I tell her that I am mad that she is gone, that Michael is gone, that I
should be gone instead of the both of them.
 
I don’t tell her that.
 
I used to, years ago but not anymore.”

“What do you tell her then?”
 
Abby looked back at Will.

 
Will turned his head so that their eyes
met, “The same thing I’ve been telling her for forty years.
 
The answer to the one question she’d ask
me every morning.
 
Hell, the one
thing I know she wants to know, that she ever cared to know.
 
What are the colors of the sunrise as I
see them?”
 
Will shifted his eyes
back to where the sun had risen as if the sun were rising once more, “And today
the colors were green, cyan really, with streaks of vermilion and magenta.”

Abby followed her father’s eyes to
where the sunrise had been.
 
With
Will, Abby saw a sunrise that existed only for them.
 
“She’d want to know that,” said Abby.

“Every morning for forty years,”
said Will dropping his head.
 
Will
lifted his head and gazed out onto the lake one final time and then turned and
took a step toward the house.

“You know,” said Abby.
 
Will stopped, their backs to each other,
Abby was beginning to tear, “
she’d
want you to tell
her tomorrow.”
 
Without turning
around, Will reached back and placed his hand on his daughters shoulder.
 
He held her for a silent moment and then
started into the house.
 
Abby stood
in the snow with the blanket held tight around her shoulders, holding still as
long as she could before her watering eyes washed the invisible sunrise away.

* * *
* *

Caroline made her way to the sofa
and let herself sink back into the soft white pillows.
 
The children had been fed and sent off
to school, the first wave of office calls were already finished, and Brian was
out on errands.
 
Now came the time
she had been anticipating.
 
Caroline
dialed the Bellen house.
 
As the
phone rang, she kicked off her slippers and put her feet up.

Abby picked up the phone, “Hello.”

“Hi, Dear.”

“Hi, good morning.
 
You’re up early enough.”

“Early, half the day has gone by
already.
 
Wait until you have kids,”
said Caroline.

“I’m sure,” said Abby, “I was up
quite early myself.”

“Will?”

“Him and the universe.”

“Oh, so how was your day
yesterday?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I
mean?
 
Don’t be coy.
 
I already talked to Mitch this morning,”
said Caroline.

Abby was on the cordless phone,
relaxing with a tea, and still gazing out onto the lake as she had been since
early this morning.
 
Upon hearing
Mitch’s name, Abby’s voice went up a pitch and she curled her legs up under
her.

“Really?
 
So, what did he have to say?” asked
Abby.

“Well, he said that he was happy
you came by, and that he enjoyed showing you the house, and that you two had an
interesting conversation.”

“What else did he say?”

“Not much, except that he would
like to see you again.”

“He did not,” Abby straightened her
neck from the current angled position.

“Well, not directly, but when I
said the kids and I were going to go watch Mitch and Brian’s hockey game later
he asked if you were coming.”

“He did, eh?” asked Abby.

“He sure did,” said Caroline.

“What’s this hockey game all
about?”

“A bunch of the guys get together
every week and play hockey, it’s just an excuse for them to drink beer.
 
A lot of us go and cheer them on.
 
It’s a lot of fun.
 
You’ll enjoy it.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Well I already told him you’re
coming.”

“Sure, when?”

“This afternoon, after family
skate, after the kids get out of school.
 
You can go to that too.”

Though Caroline and Abby made plans
to meet later in the day Caroline could not wait to hear every detail of Abby’s
visit to the Johansson house.
 
Abby
repeatedly complimented Caroline on the work underway and Caroline in turn
repeatedly shifted the conversation back to Mitch.

“There is something else I wanted
to talk about,” said Abby.

“Uncle Will,” asked Caroline.

“I told him I am bringing someone
in to take care of him and he went cold.”

“Well I can’t say that I’m
surprised.”

“Me neither, actually the whole
thing went better than I thought.
 
I
backed down before I got too much of a rise,” said Abby.

“With the way Uncle Will’s been
recently there was a real risk that he may have gone on a bender,” said
Caroline.

“I may have reeled him in when I
asked what mother would think of his self destruction.
 
He was definitely contemplative this
morning.”

Caroline got up from the sofa,
“What do you intend to do next?
 
You
certainly can’t go back to the city so soon.
 
Will needs help on a daily basis.
 
This is obvious to everybody except
Will
.
 
I’m
concerned that if you leave so soon there would be no helping
Will
adjust.
 
There needs to be some transition time between family and a caregiver.”

Abby’s chest tightened and she
began to speak at an accelerated pace, “Whether I am here or not does not make
a difference.
 
He does not listen to
me.
 
He does not want me here.”
 
Abby paused.
 
“I’m afraid I’m coming off as though I
am trying to dump my father on you.”

“I don’t think like that,” said
Caroline.

The more Abby talked through Will’s
predicament the more she convinced herself that he needed family around to help
him.
 
The more Abby was convinced
Will needed family to help him the more she was convinced that she wanted,
needed, to get back to the city.
 
By
the time Abby was finished making her case, the only thing she had convinced
herself of was that she needed to get somebody into Will’s house so that she
could get out.

Caroline had heard something very
different, “It sounds like you might need to stay longer.
 
As much for your sake as for his.”

“I just told you I need to get back
to the city,” said Abby.
 
She stood
up and began to pace.
 
Abby thought
she had made a riveting case for her exit.
 
A case that convinced her, at least, that she could get out of this.

“You need to calm down dear.
 
My god, listen to yourself, and not just
your words but also your heart,” said Caroline.

“What is it you’re trying to tell
me?”

“You shouldn’t be running from your
father, you should be running to him.”

“Run to him?
 
I ran all the way from the city for
him.”

“It’s a metaphor,” said
Caroline.
 
“You haven’t caught him
yet.”

* * *
* *

Mitch stood outside the cabin door
with three brown paper bags labeled Willow Lake IGA.
 
He had a bag in each arm and a third was
cradled between the two, covering his face.
 
Mitch was singing ‘you cannot hide from
love’ as he entered the cabin.
 
His
leather work-boot poked into the open doorway to check the path, then one, two,
three steps and the two bottom grocery bags were at rest on the Formica
table.
 
With a pause to sing the
songs chorus, Mitch placed the crowning bag on the counter next to the dish
rack that still held his plate and coffee cup from the morning’s breakfast.
 
Inside the bag were bunches of grapes
and he reached in and plucked several then popped some into his mouth.

Mitch continued to hum while he
voraciously chewed the sweet grapes and then he shut the door and went over to
the wood stove to see if any remnants of the morning fire were still burning,
popping more grapes into his mouth along the way.
 
Mitch had natural gas for heat however
as a rule, he kept the thermostat low and used the wood stove to keep an even
temperature.
 
Inside the wood stove,
a charred log brightly glowed.
 
When
Mitch opened the door to the stove the log ignited with a little yellow and
orange flame.
 
Mitch did not need to
relight the log.
 
Mitch put in a few
small pieces of wood that he had split earlier in the week then shut the stove
up tight.

Mitch then took off his brown
canvas coat and unlaced his boots.
 
The rest of the day was going to be light, a good day.
 
The day started out good already.
 
Mitch had gone up to the job site at the
Johansson house, swung by Brian and Caroline’s for coffee, and spent the rest
of the morning shopping at the IGA.
 
Mitch was going to take care of the few chores he had around the cabin
and then hockey with the fellas this afternoon.
 
He was glad to hear Caroline mention
that Abby was going to be at the rink.
 
Indeed this was going to be a good day.

Mitch emptied out the groceries
onto the table.
 
The contents were
staples to a bachelor’s winter.
 
There were the cans for assorted any time eats: tuna, soup, and chili.
 
Pastas and rice for cooking an actual
meal at some point as needed.
 
Mitch
bought a large steak that appealed to him as a breakfast steak though he could
see now that the steak was easily large enough for two dinners.
 
He debated whether the steak should be
eaten soon or frozen.
 
There were
the necessary breakfast foods: eggs, bacon, and orange juice in addition to
assorted vegetables and fruits: broccoli, carrots, apples, and grapes.
 
To wash all of the food down there was
beer and red wine from the liquor store across the street from the IGA.

The kitchen was small yet this much
food did not take much space, nor was much time needed to put the food into the
vintage white refrigerator or to fill the flower curtained cupboards in the
stairwell pantry.

The log cabin was not large, nor
rustic, by any means.
 
Over the
course of fifty years amenities such as gas, electric, and indoor plumbing had
been added.
 
Upstairs there were two
rooms that overlooked the lake and an attic room too low for Mitch to stand
in.
 
He used one of the lake view
rooms for his bed and the other for a study.
 
The main floor was split between the
kitchen and bath on one side and a large room that faced the lake.
 
Mitch had filled the room with a large
table and a couch near the fireplace.
 
The large screen porch ran the whole front of the cabin and peered over
the lake down a tall embankment fifteen feet away.

Mitch had come into possession of
the cabin in a rare circumstance.
 
He became caretaker of the cabin soon after he had moved to the lake ten
years ago.
 
Within five years, Mitch
had renovated the bathroom, finished the two rooms upstairs, and thinned the
long neglected overgrown landscape.
 
The aging owner asked Mitch if he would like to buy the place.
 
Mitch wanted to yet he did not have much
money or credit.
 
The owner said he
would talk to his accountant to see if he could find a way to make things
work.
 
Six months later, a letter
from the owner came with a deed of ownership.
 
The letter explained the owner was
giving Mitch the cabin and surrounding acre of land.
 
Mitch had been a far better custodian of
the property then the owner had ever been.
 
In his aging years, the owner saw no reason to wait to die to be the
benefactor of the land.

This was the end to what had been a
transient existence for Mitch.
 
Apart from college the five years he had spent at the lake was the
longest he had ever spent in one place.
 
Now he had put down real roots.
 
Mitch liked Willow Lake, liked the people of Willow Lake, and the people
of Willow Lake liked him.

After putting the groceries away,
Mitch grabbed some more grapes then went to the living room.
 
He peered out the large window, through
the porch, and onto the lake.
 
There
were shanties spread across the ice near the cabin.
 
The ice fishing was good on this side of
the lake.
 
Mitch stopped humming,
put two more grapes in his mouth, and rubbed his nose with his index
finger.
 
He thought that fresh trout
would be delicious for dinner and wondered if anyone at the Stone Bar may have
some for sale.
 
If any quads were
out on the ice, he could go out to a visit shanty and see how the catch was
going.
 
Mitch picked up the
binoculars he kept on the log he used as a table under the window.
 
The only quad he could see belonged to
the Lacroux boys.
 
He had just seen
the two in the village so Mitch knew they were just now dropping lines.
 
He would have to wait for the evening
after the hockey game.
 
Maybe Abby
would want to join him for dinner.

Mitch was silent now and had
stopped chewing his grapes.
 
He
slowly stretched his head from side to side his eyebrows lifting high.
 
“Maybe Abby would want to join him for
dinner,” he iterated in thought.
 
He
resumed chewing and reached down to pickup his black lacquered acoustic guitar
then spun to his left, landing on his old quilt covered couch.
 
Eyes fixed to the far corner of the room
he put his last two grapes in his mouth, chewed slowly, and then
swallowed.
 
Mitch tapped out a beat
on his guitar and started to hum.
 
He stopped, plucked three strings, tuned the guitar, and started to hum
again.
 
Mitch started to play his
guitar, improvising words as he went along until he found a melody he liked.

There was no doubt that Mitch was
enamored with Abby.
 
Once Mitch
found a melody that fit the late morning, the poetry that followed had the
designs of his attentions toward her.
 
Mitch was not writing a song so much as an ode to meeting someone that
had inspired him for the first time in quite some time.
 
When Abby talked to him, Mitch did not
have to pretend to listen.
 
He honestly
wanted to hear what she had to say.
 
Mitch wanted to hear what Abby thought about, where she had been, where
she was going, what her interests were, and what she was working on.
 
Mitch had known her for less than a week
and in the night, before sleep, the only thing he could think about was Abby.