The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series) (20 page)

Will lifted the corner of his top
lip.
 
Abby was sure a biting comment
would follow, and then he eased back.
 
“Eh,” said Will, “If I’m going to keep up on the current orders Nathan
will have to do something around here that can help me out.
 
It’s a job I give to most interns.”

Nathan appreciated Will’s hidden
compliments in their banter.
 
Nathan
smiled when Abby winked at him.
 
Helping in the studio had been one of the enticing draws to the
position.

Abby leaned over Nathan’s shoulder,
“Everything working out so far?”

“Will’s a gem,” said Nathan, and
then added softly and quickly, “We’re getting along fine.
 
I’ve found my way around the house and
the studio easily enough.
 
Will has
not stepped in front of my duties and in the short time that I’ve been here,
I’ve been able to move through the bedrooms to do the laundry, through the
kitchen for cooking and shopping, and freely through each room to keep the
place tidy.
 
And Will has been
really great to get along with, I think Will is delighted in having assistance
around the house.”

Nathan added, “Oh and as you
suspected, Will has replenished the not so well hidden bottles of brandy around
the house that you had thrown out.
 
I have also seen Will drinking brandy several times when he thought I
wasn’t looking and he openly drinks wine around me throughout the day when
you’re not around.”

Abby walked over to the large bay
window.
 
The icicle-laden eave of
the studio cast a shadow on the sill.
 
She had spoken with Nathan to set her comfort level enough to head back
to the city.
 
Her plan was to get a
good night’s rest and leave in the morning.
 
Abby had come to tell her father yet as
she gazed upon the lake a thought occurred to her.
 
Seeing her father today reminded her of
how he used to be.
 
Maybe she was
rushing off to soon.
 
Perhaps if she
spent more time with her father things would change between them.
 
Perhaps she could fulfill her mother’s
promise.
 
All he needed was someone
to take care of him.

Abby looked at her father and was
filled with new compassion.
 
How
handsome he appeared standing with his hands behind his back walking around his
studio as the master craftsman.
 
She
thought for a moment how lucky she was to have a father that was such a
craftsman, an artist, and a true one in a million.
 
How precious their time really was
together.
 
With that, she decided
that the museum could wait a little longer.
 
Maybe she would take an early
sabbatical.
 
In a moment of
spontaneity, Abby asked Will to come over to the window.

Abby had long thought about working
in the studio with her father even if only in the back of her mind.
 
Will had a large number of special
orders and backorders for his regular clients.
 
Abby knew her father could use her help.
 
She knew the standard Bellen designs and
could surely help with the backorders.
 
The criteria for the Bellen mark was that they were made by Bellen
hands, she had those.
 
She quickly
rationalized that if ever there was a time to offer up help, she should now,
Will needed help and he would be happy for this chance for his daughter to work
with him.
 
Abby’s mind flashed to
throwing clay high into urns and tending kilns until dawn.
 
She saw images of her and her father
doing detail work in the studio together late into the evening.
 
This would be the way she would reach
out to him.
 
She determined to offer
to do so.

Will stepped over to the window
next to Abby and looked out onto lake with his hands behind has back and a grin
upon his face.
 
He glanced back at
Nathan and then at Abby and said, “You know you had a good idea here.
 
I like this fella, spies on me a bit
though.”

Abby glanced back at Nathan, he had
heard Will, and then with a smile to Will, “Does he?”

“Not all the time, but he sure is
curious every time I have a nip.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Prays a lot too.
 
Not just at meals, all
day.
 
That’s ok though, I like ‘em.”

“Good…
 
So, Dad, I’m pretty much ready to head
back to the city.
 
The house is in
order.
 
You’re saying that Nathan is
working out.
 
But I was thinking…”

“What’s that you’re thinking about
dear?”

“Well I was thinking, the museum
doesn’t need me back right away, and you have so many orders, I was thinking
the studio maybe could use another Bellen for a few days, or longer.
 
Whadda ya think?”

Will’s smile went away from his
face and his hands slipped from behind his back to his front pockets.
 
He dropped his head and clenched his
jaw, grinding his teeth a little.
 
Though
not long at all, to Abby the pause lasted for some
time.
 
She tried to keep smiling
then her eyes began to fail.
 
Abby
could see that Will’s head was going through some elaborate deliberation
process.
 
She wondered why would he
have to do that.
 
That there would
be a chance he would say no had not occurred to her a few minutes before.
 
She no longer smiled.

Will said nothing.
 
He was not deliberating at all, caught
off guard he was in some type of shock.
 
Whatever had manifested as new compassion toward her father washed away
with his solemn
rejection.
 
He could not even humor her to look her
in the eyes.
 
He knew that their
relationship was diminishing and still he could not help himself.
 
He was overtaken by a void and there
were no words he could share with her.
 
Will was engulfed with the thought that the only recent Bellen to work
in the studio beside him was Michael.
 
Abby had triggered some kept emotion that he knew too well yet had not
felt in some time.

Abby could not believe that Will
had gone catatonic on her offer to help in the studio.
 
The thought that to have her work beside
him bothered him so badly and not give a reason, not even a response,
infuriated her.

“I guess that’s a no,” said
Abby.
 
She waited for a reply.
 
Abby had to give him one more
opportunity, not out of compassion this time, rather to verify that what he was
truly doing was emotionally shunning her, shutting her out, and not the first
time.
 
The response did not
come.
 
After the pause Abby said,
“I’ll be packing in the house,” and then she turned and walked away.

Will stayed in the position he was
in with his head turned down.
 
He
was unaware that Abby had said anything or that she had even walked away.
 
Will was away in his own little world.

Abby left the studio and walked the
newly shoveled path to the house.
 
Her eyes did not well with tears yet her cheeks were flush and her jaw
was tight.
 
Once in the house, she
went into her bedroom and shut her door.
 
Abby began frantically removing clothes from the bureau and closet and
placing them on the bed.
 
The
morning would be too long to wait to leave this house.

* * *
* *

A soft knock came upon Abby’s
bedroom door, yet Abby continued going through her closet.
 
The knock came again accompanied by Will
pleading, “C’mon let me in.”
 
She
took the clothes in her hands from the closet and moved them to the bed with
her back to the door.

“I’m sorry, open the door,” said
Will.

Abby went on sorting clothes.

“Hey listen, I’m sorry, for
whatever I did, I’m sorry,” said Will.

Abby stood straight from organizing
the clothes on the bed with some still in hand.

“Whatever you did, you’re sorry?”
asked Abby.

“Yes,” said Will, thinking this a
quick end to his plea, “now open the door.”

Abby threw her arms straight down,
still holding the blouse she was folding, and turned to the door, “You don’t
know what you did?”

“Well maybe.
 
Open the door, let me explain,” said
Will, realizing he had been overconfident.

The door flew open in front of Will
and Abby marched out passed him, “Let you explain.
 
Explain what?”

“Why I didn’t answer.”

Abby turned back to Will.
 
“Is that all you think you did,” said
Abby and then kept going down the hall, leaving Will standing in the doorway.

“You just caught me off guard,”
said Will.
 
Will began to follow
Abby.
 
He caught up to her in the
lake room, “ I hadn’t thought about --.”

Abby cut him off, “—Another
Bellen besides Michael?”

Abby kept going into the
kitchen.
 
She had processed what had
happened in the studio.
 
The
question was not of Will deliberating whether or not she should stay and help.
 
Abby realized that he was spinning again
about her brother.
 
To Abby, the
issue with Will was always her brother.

“Now hold on,” said Will walking
across the lake room.
 
“Now what
exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“You know.”

“There you go,” said Will.
 
He stopped at the kitchen doorway.
 
Abby was at the sink shuffling dishes
around with her back to him.

“Whadda ya mean there I go?”

“There you go again.
 
I’m supposed to know what you mean, and,
you bringing up Michael,” Will raised his voice, “Christ your brother’s dead!”

Abby stopped shuffling the dishes,
raised her head, and with out turning asked, “Is he?
 
Is he the one that’s been dead for the
last twelve years?”

“What kind of damn question is
that?”
 
Will raised and placed his
hand on the back of his neck.

Abby turned toward him, “How about
the last twenty?”

“Last twenty?”

Abby looked as deeply as she could
into her father’s eyes, “Yea, Daddy,” said Abby, “twenty years ago when Mom
passed away and you started pretending I wasn’t there.
 
You think I didn’t notice.
 
Oh, but Michael.
 
You embraced Michael.
 
It was always Michael.”

Abby raised her voice, “I was right
here Daddy!”

Abby took a breath.
 
Calmly she added, “I was hurting
too.
 
And when Michael died…
”
 
Abby nodded
her head, “I was hurting then too.
 
And we could have had each other then, but no, you pretended like you
were the last member of the family, like you were alone.
 
He was the last of the ‘Bellen Line’,
isn’t that what you said at his funeral?
 
Do you know how that made me feel?
 
You made me feel alone.
 
You
make me feel alone.”

Will did remember saying that at
Michael’s funeral.
 
He of course had
been devastated by Michael’s death, had he really excluded his daughter?
 
He couldn’t honestly remember much,
everything was dark when he thought back to then, and he did not ever try to
think back to then.

“Abby that’s not at all true.
 
I didn’t know what I was saying, my son
died --,”

“—It’s all true.
 
You knew what you were saying, the ‘Last
of the Bellen Line’, I offered to help in the studio today and you couldn’t
even look me in the face!
 
I’m not
Michael, Daddy, but I’m a Bellen and I can make pots and urns better than most
anybody, I can work with clay and detail better than Michael ever could.”

Will lifted his chin and his voice,
“That’s no way to talk about your dead brother.”
 
His hand on his neck began to rub back
and forth.

“Still defending him, he’s not even
here.”

Will backed up against the doorway,
“That’s just about enough, I loved you both.
 
You just don’t understand.”
 
Will put his hands on his face, “I just…
with you… after your mother died.”
 
Will tried to form a thought and his brow wavered up and down, then he
dropped his hand’s to his sides and looked up toward Abby with surrender, “Hon,
I love you, I appreciate everything you’ve done, but this is not the place for
you.”

“Don’t understand.
 
Not the place for me.
 
That’s just beautiful.”
 
Abby looked up in the air and raised her
hands, “You hear that Mom, he pretends I don’t exist for twenty years and then
says I don’t understand.”
 
She
dropped her hands and looked back at Will, “Make me understand.
 
Make me understand why, when I keep
reaching out to you, you keep pushing me away.
 
Why are you pining away waiting for his
return when your daughter is right here to help you?
 
Make me understand cuz I don’t.
 
I don’t understand.
 
I don’t understand why you won’t let me,
your daughter, help you.
 
More important
I don’t understand why you’re killing yourself in the process.
 
Make me understand.”