The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series) (21 page)

“You wanna know?” said Will, his
eyes lighting up, his back straightening from a slump.

Abby startled at his reaction,
“Yea.”

“You want to know?”

“Yes, I want to know,” said Abby,
unsure now if she really did now that he had offered up an answer.

“Which question do you want an
answer to?
 
What’s with
Michael?
 
What’s with me?
 
Whadda ya wanna know?”

Abby was surprised by his
frankness.
 
The discourse was
emotional and she was confused.
 
She
decided to walk over to the table and sit down.
 
She placed her elbows on the table,
clasped her hands together, and looked up at her father, “I don’t know.
 
Either, both.”

“Well,” said Will.
 
He approached the table to sit down
beside Abby, “ the answer is the same.”

* * *
* *

Abby flashed her eyes to Will and
softly said, “This is no time for games, Dad.”

“It’s no game,” said Will, “The
answer is:
 
I deserve it.”

“You deserve it.”

“That’s the answer.
 
I deserve it.”

“Ok,” Abby was tiring, “why do you
think you deserve it?”

“I deserve it because of what I
did.
 
I can’t sleep.
 
I’m haunted knowing what I did.
 
I’ve told your Mother I’m sorry a
thousand times but it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“What you did, what did you
do?
 
You’re right, I don’t
understand.
 
What are you talking
about?
 
What did you do?”

“Those boys, Michael and Thomas, I
might as well have been driving the jeep myself,” said Will.

Abby rested her hands flat on the
table, her jaw dropped open.
 
Was
Will sincere or could he be trying to frustrate her.
 
Abby had heard her father voice this
frustration after her brother’s death.
 
To blame ones self was an understandable part of the grieving process,
still Will was going too far.
 
She
spoke deadpan, “Really?
 
That’s the
best you have to offer.”

“Really,” said Will surprised.

“Michael was drunk.
 
He hit a tree.
 
He died Dad.
 
You get it.
 
You didn’t put him in the car,” Abby was
becoming disgusted with her father.

“You’re wrong, I did.”

“You did,” said Abby.

“To get beer,” said Will.
 
Abby looked at him and said nothing, “to
get beer,” Will repeated.

“What?”

“To get beer.”
 
Will threw up his hands, “I sent the
boys to get beer.”

Abby furrowed her brow, “Really
Dad?”

Michael and Will had been drinking
buddies long before that night.
 
To
hear him speak now as if there were something that never occurred was hypocrisy
and Abby knew as well.

Still Will was serious.
 
His cool blue eyes deepened as he subtly
leaned toward his daughter.
 
His
unwavering voice aged ten years, “We were tending the kilns the whole night and
all day.
 
The Lee boy was there to
help Michael out by moving stuff around out in the old kiln and chopping
wood.
 
And we were drinking,
drinking whiskey and beer.
 
The beer
ran out.
 
I threw Michael his keys
and told ‘em that we needed more beer.
 
I knew he was drunk.
 
We were
all drunk.
 
But he was happy to
go.
 
Said he’d be right back.
 
But he wasn’t.”

Abby tried to understand her
father.
 
“Don’t you think I knew
that?” she asked.
 
She realized her
eyes were watering again at the thought of her brother.

“I guess I knew you did, but I was
ashamed.”

Abby put her hands in her face and
sighed, “So this is what you’re doing to yourself?
 
Making amends by punishing yourself and
me?”

“I don’t think I’m punishing
anybody.”

“Of course not,” said Abby, “but
you have to see yourself.
 
You need
to let it go.”

“I just can’t.”

“Not the way you’re going about
it.
 
I should’ve put two and two
together a long time ago.
 
Stop
blaming yourself.
 
Michael knew
better.
 
He was a grown man, you
need to stop taking all the credit for him being an idiot.”
 
Abby pulled her head up straight and
wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.

“It’s not that easy,” said Will.

“It is,” said Abby, she felt as if
she were speaking to a child, “I’m here for you, if you let me.
 
I always have been.”

“I know, I’m sorry I pushed you
away.”

“Then why did you?”

“You were always with your
mother.
 
You look like her; you talk
like her, hell you even argue like her.
 
After she died, I saw her every time I looked into your eyes.
 
And it hurt, I miss her so much.”

“I miss her too,” said Abby, “but you
didn’t have to ignore me.
 
I needed
you.”

“You didn’t need me like you
thought you did.
 
You’re strong like
your Mother.
 
Michael, he needed
me.
 
He was lost.
 
He could never go out in the world like
you did.
 
He barely made it through
high school.
 
You—well look at
you—fancy job at one of the best museums in the world.
 
You’ve traveled places your mother and I
never made it to.
 
You’ve seen
things your mother never lived to see, things that I’ll never live to see.
 
You’re doing the things your mother would
have wanted you to do.”
 
Will’s eyes
were blue pools of water,
 
“Don’t
you think I know you can throw a pot better than anyone?
 
I can teach any lummox to do what I do
over time.
 
Your brother was always
going to make a career here because he never could do anything else.
 
Your Mother nurtured you because you
could do anything since you were small… like her.”

Abby’s eyes too were wet
again.
 
She had not expected Will to
say anything like that.
 
She put a
soft smile across her face, “You never told me any of that before.
 
That you felt like that.”

“Well that’s how it is.”

“That’s how it is,” said Abby.
 
“I see then, you don’t need my help
after all.
 
I better finish packing
and get out of here.”

“I don’t want you rushing out of
here like this.
 
I tell you what,
why don’t you stay for a few more days.
 
In the mean time, if you don’t mind, you can help me catch up in the
studio.”

Abby’s heart filled with the idea
that Will had just extended an olive branch.
 
“I appreciate that, but you’re right,
there are things I need to get back to.
 
I’ll pack up tonight and you can take me to Fremont in the morning.”

* * *
* *

Mitch raised his hand above his
right ear and then let his arm fly forward, releasing the dart too early.
 
The steel tip planted into the green
cork above the twenty, the second to miss the board in a row.
 
He had been throwing darts for the last
hour.
 
Playing cricket against
himself and not faring so well.
 
On
most occasions, his precision was spot on however Mitch was not really paying
much attention to the board.
 
His
thoughts were where they had been most of the week, with the girl with the
chestnut hair.
 
He thought about how
she smelled.
 
He thought about how
she talked.
 
He thought about how
she smiled, laughed, and tasted.

Mitch thought about the way that
Abby Bellen made him
feel
.
 
Certainly she made him feel good, there
was that, she was a pleasure to be around, and there was more than that
too.
 
She made him physically feel
something in the pit of his stomach.
 
He felt a flutter, an ache, and nausea all at once.
 
Maybe he was coming down with something,
whatever that something was felt stronger when she was near.
 
He threw another dart scoring not on the
twenty rather the eighteen.

Mitch did not like the way things
had left off yesterday when he last saw Abby.
 
He had tried calling the Bellen house
today and no one had answered.
 
He
was not exactly sure what he wanted to say to Abby.
 
What was his next move?
 
Dinner he supposed, though that seemed
so formal.
 
He reasoned they had
already had a date at the theater, definitely a date, so why not ask her out
for another.

Mitch walked to the dartboard and
pulled a dart from the board and two from the wall, prying one that had sunk
deep.
 
He marked an eighteen on the
chalkboard and then walked back to throw badly again.

Mitch asked himself where to have
dinner.
 
Of course, he could cook
himself, would that be too presumptuous?
 
He could take her to the South Point Inn for a gourmet meal.
 
Then again, he did not want to come off
as too overbearing.
 
Perhaps to just
try to call her again would be best and see where things went from there.
 
He dialed her cell this time rather than
the house and the call went right to voice mail.
 
Stammering Mitch left a quick message
for Abby to give him a call back.
 
Putting his phone back into his pocket he sighed to himself then sat
down at the table, poured a beer from his pitcher, and then took a drink.

* * *
* *

Abby flipped through a copy of the
City News that someone had left on the train with little interest.
 
Will had taken her to the station in
Fremont midmorning after a stop at the cemetery to wipe the snow away from her
mother and brother’s stones.

As the train came through the next
populated area Abby’s cell phone chimed.
 
She saw a new message in her voicemail inbox.
 
She put the phone to her ear and
struggled to hear the message.
 
She
could not entirely decipher what was being said.
 
She could hear Mitch’s deep voice
through the static and did get the four words that mattered, “give me a
call.”
 
She placed the phone on her
lap realizing that she may have blundered.
 
Abby could have at least stopped by to say good-bye yet had decided that
she did not want to complicate things, that she had was obvious to her
now.
 
Opening her cell phone, she
could see that the chance to call back would have to wait until she returned to
the city.
 
That would be for the
better because that would give her a chance to call Caroline.

* * *
* *

Will offered to help Nathan clean
the dishes after their late lunch.
 
Nathan told him that washing dishes was his responsibility and that Will
should feel free to take care of the work he had piled up in the studio.
 
Will headed out to the studio yet he did
not feel free at all, despite what Nathan had told him.
 
As he crossed the walkway to the studio
he looked out across the lake, paused, and then turned to walk toward the birch
bench.
 
His walk to the bench, slow
and determined, carried him through the same steps he had taken too many times
to count since his youth.
 
On the
bench, he pulled out his camels and took one from the pack.
 
He thought to himself that he smoked
more lately.
 
He cuffed the
cigarette when he lit the end and glanced up at the willow towering next to the
bench then out to the lake.
 
He
looked up at the tree again as he exhaled.
 
As
Will
peered at the willow he thought that
there were things, such as what was bothering him now, which could not be
hidden.
 
Still he took a posture
away from the tree by resting both of his hands by his sides on the edge of the
bench and leaned forward into them, peering out across the lake.
 
He slowly rocked back and forth
occasionally sucking on his cigarette and then peeking up at the tree before
turning his head back out to the lake.
 
When Will finally gathered enough courage, he lifted his eyes high into
the tree and spoke.
 
“Sorry,” was
all he said.
 
Emily and Will shared
a love deep and dear.
 
Will felt
Emily could hear him talking to her as closely as when they were young.
 
Will did not feel right about what he
had done.
 
Abby got on the train
congenially yet he knew things were still not right between them.

Though the words seemed foreign to
him when spoken the night before, Will could not pretend to himself that there
had not been an issue all of these years past.
 
He had chosen to deny the gulf between
him and his daughter like all of those other things in his life that had not
made sense since Emily had gotten ill.
 
Abby even now embodied Emily in his eyes.
 
After last night, he could not be sure
if the rift would ever be closed.

Will peered deeply into the weave
of willow branches towering above him in search of solace.
 
Emily would not have been pleased with
him all of this time.
 
She would not
have been pleased with him last night and Abby was right that Emily would not
be pleased as to how he was taking care of himself.

* * *
* *

Caroline had just put the twins to
bed when her phone rang.
 
The call
was expected.
 
Brian had gone over to
the studio earlier in the day to check on part of the order and spoke to
Nathan.
 
Nathan told him that Will
had taken Abby to Fremont to catch the train.
 
Caroline had asked Brian not to mention
to Mitch that Abby had gone until she had a chance to speak to her.
 
Brian told Caroline that Mitch would
want to know why Abby had left so abruptly.
 
She was expected to stay through the
week.
 
Caroline assured Brian that
Abby leaving must have something to do with Will.
 
Abby’s issues always had something to do
with Will.

By fortune, Brian did not have to
mention anything to Mitch as Mitch had made himself scarce for the day.
 
Caroline had waited for the call that
she knew would come.

Leaving Willow Lake quickly was
typical of Abby, not saying goodbye was not, especially to Caroline and the
twins.
 
When Caroline picked up the
phone apologies for the quick exit came first.

“I’m really sorry,” said Abby.
 
“I just had to get out of there.”

“I understand completely,” said
Caroline, “if you needed to get away from Will then that is what you had to
do.”

“I’m not sure what to think
now.
 
He really caught me off
guard.”

“You just need some time to
process.”

“You think?”

“I do.”
 
Caroline set Abby at ease then quickly
changed the topic, “But it wasn’t right to leave Mitch hanging like that no
matter what the circumstances.
 
It’s
not only unfair to Mitch to leave without saying goodbye, but unfair to you
too.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You just let a great guy, the
right guy, slip through your fingers.
 
Besides, it’s just cruel of you not reaching out to him and letting him
know that you were going back to the city.
 
I mean...
 
He is so sweet.”

“Well, I feel a bit better about
Will.
 
But I gotta say, you know how
to pour on the guilt.”

Of course Abby would need to call
Mitch, yet what to say?
 
“Sorry and
thanks for the good time,” she thought.
 
How many times in her life had she let a man put her in that position?
 
Now the shoe somehow ended up on the
other foot and did not fit her well.

“What are the words?” asked
Abby.
 
Caroline was her best friend
since childhood, Abby should have known better.

“You will have to find your own and
you had better think of them quick because this can’t be put off until
tomorrow, that would be childish beyond cruel,” said Caroline.
 
That Caroline was always right usually
assured Abby yet this time she felt as though she had been a child caught doing
something wrong.

“Ok, ok.
 
I’ll call Mitch as soon as we get off
the phone.”

* * *
* *

Mitch had left two messages on
Abby’s phone.
 
He called again then
hung up when her voicemail began.
 
He was afraid of sounding like a stalker.
 
He was convinced that her cell phone
battery had died and did not want to be the guy that had left fifteen
messages.
 
By trying to call back
periodically he was confident that he would catch the phone recharging.
 
By afternoon he stopped calling all
together because he decided that if she had heard his messages and had chosen
not to call him, he would still come off as a stalker.
 
All he could do was wait.

Mitch took his guitar in hand and
sat on the couch.
 
He let his hand
lightly brush up and down the strings as he searched for a chord.
 
The fireplace was lit and the flame
shown on the side of his face.
 
He
began to play a wandering melody that soon formed into a softer and sweeter
version of the Ode to Abby melody he had composed earlier.
 
He closed his eyes and thought about the
theater.
 
Abby’s kisses so soft and
intent, her body so nimble, and her passion so giving.
 
Mitch pushed the ache he was creating
from his chest out to his fingers adding lightly defined notes to the warm
melody.
 
His inside warmed with the
images of Abby and the room warmed by the music she inspired.
 
He felt less lonely and only now
realized he had ever been lonely at all.

When the phone rang Mitch almost
did not hear.
 
Mitch awoke from his
daze.
 
The guitar stopped and a
sobering silence took place of the warm music.
 
Mitch almost tripped over himself
getting across the room to answer the phone.

“Hello,” said Mitch.

“Mitch,” came the voice on the
other line.

“Hello, Hello.”

“It’s Abby.”

“Yea, I mean Hi,” said Mitch.
 
Mitch now stood straight composing
himself.

“I can’t hear you that well.”

“Just a second, I’ll go near the
porch.”
 
Mitch walked quickly onto
his screen porch, grabbing a jacket by the door to pull over his t-shirt.

“I tried to call you,” said
Mitch.
 
“Earlier.”

“Yea, my phone didn’t have any
reception.”
 
Abby had planned a
drawn out explanation, as was her nature she went direct, “I was on the train.”

“I see,” said Mitch.
 
His voice had lowered then he quickly
recovered, “I didn’t realize you needed to get back so soon.”

Relieved at Mitch’s response Abby
quickly said the first thing that came to mind, “Well, something came up this
morning and I didn’t really have time to get things in order at the lake.
 
I’m really sorry.”
 
She asked herself if that sounded as bad
as she thought.

“No don’t worry about it, things
come up,” said Mitch, his heart pounding.