During June and July, and the early days of August, the house was finished—down to the last detail. Roger came and went. We didn’t speak except to confirm a choice of electrical fixtures and other things related to the project, but gradually the tension eased between us. I had lived mostly in the cabin with my clay, except for when I was at Rose Lane organizing things for the move. Alone.
Ellen stayed at Elk Ridge with her father. She didn’t come to see me again. It was a different kind of jail that she’d put me in, I guessed. Liam finished carving the porch posts. They were works of art. Each evening, after he left, I examined the progress. Leaves, rough tree trunks were well defined, and that’s what you saw immediately, but as you looked, as your fingers strayed over the shapes and textures in the wood, you began to discover the small animal faces—a squirrel, raccoons, and others—emerging from hiding. Near the base where he’d shaped tall grasses was a rabbit’s nose and one long ear, edging out from between the thin blades.
After Liam was finished with the posts, he came over the ridge a few times, mostly to let me know Ellen was doing well. On one visit, he told me she was, indeed, going off to college in mid-August. He didn’t speculate on the future, and he offered no reassurance. His manner was kind, if reserved, and that was appropriate. I’d given him a daughter—one he’d lost who was now returned to him. Though perhaps I’d kept her overlong.
They were getting to know each other. He had discovered Ellen had a mind of her own. She would do what she would do. Of course, she was that way. I’d taught her myself, hadn’t I?
In the second week of August, Ellen called to say she was leaving for Tech. Hearing her voice on the phone set my heart to racing. She said she was coming by on her way out of town, if I didn’t mind.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll be here.”
I walked out to the porch to watch for her car, my hands resting on Liam’s posts for comfort. She drove down the widened, updated driveway and paused a ways from the house, ironically not far from the spot where we’d huddled in the face of the fire, before pulling the car closer to park. That spot had lost its hold on me. Now it was as Ellen had once said—she remembered being very afraid but not the actual fear. That memory had been superseded by other, sharper events. Because that’s what life was—a series of changes, some painful but sometimes garnering greater beauty despite the pain.
She came up to the porch, carrying her duffel bag. We hugged, not with the enthusiasm of old, but I reminded myself that sometimes life was about baby steps.
“On your way?”
She nodded.
“Thanks for coming by.”
She paused and lifted the duffel bag. “Actually, I wanted to drop off a few things. I want to leave them here, if you’re good with that.”
Breathe in, breathe out, I reminded myself. “Certainly. Absolutely. Do you need help?”
“No, I’ve got it.”
“Can I fix you a sandwich or a glass of tea?” When she didn’t answer, I added, “I can wrap it up for you, in case you get hungry on the road.”
She breathed out a small puff of air. “Sure. Sounds good. I’ll take it with me.”
I busied myself in the kitchen. I sensed she wanted privacy. Was that good or bad? I didn’t know.
She carried the duffel bag to her bedroom and then went back out to the car, returning with a couple of large plastic bags. Clothing, I guessed. Seemed like a good sign, then. She stayed in the bedroom longer this time. When she came out, she paused in the main room, her hands deep in her pockets. She faced the French doors for a minute or two, apparently taking in the new deck and the landscaping; then she turned around to examine the main room, and her gaze paused on the hearth. Her eyes slid past it, then back, and she walked over to the stone fireplace.
I thought she might be memorizing the new house. How much of the old homeplace still remained in her memory? Most of it had probably being pushed out or overwritten long ago. That seemed to be the fate of memories.
Ellen cleared her throat, then spoke but with hesitation in her voice. “You aren’t the only one who made a mistake. The night the house burned . . . I never told you, but I messed with the woodstove. I promised I wouldn’t, but I did anyway. I was cold. I took some of the pages from my coloring book and put them in the stove to feed the fire. I knew I was breaking a rule, but I did it anyway.” She stared down at the unburned logs in my lovely new fireplace, but that wasn’t what she was seeing. “I never told you because I was afraid I’d . . . that if you found out it was my fault that the house . . . caught fire . . .”
With all the honesty I could put into my voice, I said, “It wasn’t your fault. I woke up when you returned to bed. I went to check on things and found the stove door open. I closed it. That’s not how the fire started.”
She turned toward me swiftly, her eyes full of unshed tears. “Seriously?”
My love was honest even if my words weren’t. “Seriously. The fire was caused by a clogged flue pipe.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sweetheart. I’m as sure about that as about anything. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”
Ellen rested her hand on the mantel, almost as if it were holding her up, and then I saw strength and confidence returning to her as she stood taller. She stepped away from the fireplace, but as she did, she stopped again, staring at the pots on the mantel.
My latest pots. The glazes were glorious, if I were to say so myself. The textured patterns in the clay and in the glazes kept drawing my own hands toward them, wanting to touch and hold them, as if each time I saw them anew. A while back I’d told Roger my clay work was uninspired. No longer. Over these past few months, I had changed. So had Roger.
Ellen reached slowly toward the pots. She turned to me, wonder in her eyes, then looked back at them again.
“These are beautiful, Mom.”
Mom. My heart fluttered. Was it hope, perhaps? I bit my lip. I remembered how cruel hope could be.
She frowned. “Is it the new kiln, do you think? What else is different? Maybe a new clay? Or the glaze?”
She seemed to be speaking to herself, not really expecting an answer.
I cried, but quietly.
Ellen was kind and pretended not to notice the tears on my face. Then the clay figure near the end of the mantel, slightly in the shadow of a larger pot, caught her eye. She reached toward it and captured it, cradling it in both her hands.
It was the child figure, the tiny girl on a stone wall, with butterfly wings coming around from behind her, spilling over the stone on which she sat. The membranes of the wings were fingerlike, curving inward protectively, yet the tips of her wings soared up above her body. She’d been fired for durability, but she remained unglazed, unfinished, and always would, of course.
“Is she me?” Ellen whispered.
I smiled and felt new tears squeeze out from my eyes. Was it Ellen? The first Ellen left us—she died—and the new Ellen came into our lives. Did the figure represent the first or second Ellen? Was it me? I knew the answer but didn’t speak it aloud.