Castles On The Sand Part 29

"Kailie always wished she could have your life. Have your freedom."

"Okay..."

He pats the wall hanging, which he's slung over our couch. "Listen, this isn't easy for me, but there are two truths that we need to deal with. One is that your mother's art does not sell, and given her rate of production, she takes up more and more of our inventory s.p.a.ce, and we can't justify it anymore. There are other artists who apply and can sell ten, twenty times the volume your mother does."

"So you're going to pull my mom's art from the gallery and kill her career."

"The other is that we can't hope to make things work with Kailie while you are still here. You're the worst influence possible."

"I have only ever been nice to her."

"I'm sure that's how you see it. I know you can live in these houses on a shoestring, but you can't live on nothing. I think it's time you and your mother moved on. Go set up a new life in a different town. And I'm going to ask you to never contact my daughter again."

"We don't have to leave, even if you do take her art out of the gallery. I earn an income, and if I wanted to, I could quit school and work at Jacksons or something. We'd get by. You can't run us out."

"I'll do whatever it is I need to do to save my daughter."

"I am not the problem."

He lifts his chin at that and anger flashes in his eyes, but he holds it back. "I'll have the rest of your mother's inventory delivered later on this morning. You have a good day."

As he lets himself out of the front door, I hear the back door open too. Mom was in the kitchen, eavesdropping. She left me alone with Mr. Beale and cowered in the other room. Thanks, Mom, I think.

I hear the sound of pottery shattering.

"Mom?" She breaks things on purpose sometimes, to make shards for windchimes for example, but more crashes follow the first. She's not just breaking one pot.

I go out the back door and make my way to the shed, the p.r.i.c.kly weeds digging into the soles of my feet. I don't want to stop to get slippers because I know something is seriously wrong. Sure enough, Mom, with a hammer, is systematically breaking her inventory. "Mom, stop. It's all right. Mom."

She whirls around and for one insane moment, it seems like she's about to hit me with the hammer, just beat me down until I fall to pieces like her pots. Her gaze holds mine for what feels like minutes, but is probably no more than a fraction of a second before she grabs a whole shelf of drying pottery and slams it to the concrete floor of her shed.

"This is what my life is worth," she says. "I gave everything for this, and this is what I have to show for it." She turns towards her wheel, hammer raised.

"Mom! No." I tackle her and we both fall into the drying shelves. Bowls and cups rain down around us, some of them breaking on the concrete floor. I do my best to hold her arms to her sides and wrestle the hammer away. "Don't. Stop." I throw the hammer out into the backyard where it disappears among the weeds. "Stop."

She struggles with me for a moment, then goes limp, tears streaming down her face.

I hold her. "It'll be okay. We don't owe any rent. I can pay for groceries and stuff. We'll be fine."

She shakes her head. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because as long as you're here, I can't forget."

"Forget what?"

"All of it. Everything I did, just because I thought I deserved better." She wriggles out of my embrace and sits with her head between her knees, pottery crunching under her.

I get up and stare down at her crumpled figure. Mom dies inside without her pottery. Keep her away from her wheel long enough and the light goes out of her eyes. It's happened over the course of a weekend, once, when her wheel was being repaired, and again the one time she traveled for a show. She sold nothing and came home irritable and spitting venomous insults.

As I watch her, the pieces start to click together in my mind, like a shattered pot rea.s.sembling itself. She sniffles and doesn't look at me.

I pick my way across the pot shard littered floor and wrestle open the big bag of clay that she always has by her kiln. She's almost run out. Her shelf of glazes is looking pretty depleted too.

"I'm calling your supplier," I say. "Get you some more clay and glazes."

"Don't-"

"I'm not asking your permission. I'm just letting you know. I'm gonna write a check for $900.00 to Elaine, and leave it on the kitchen table. That should cover a lot. I tried to pay our rent with that money, but the landlord just voided the check." I hit the switch to power up her potter's wheel. "Come on. You can clean the place up later."

She doesn't look up.

I step carefully over to the door and then pick my way back to the house, my feet smarting so bad that I'm sure I've cut myself. At the back door I brush off the soles of my feet and find that I've got little plant spines of some kind stuck in the skin. It takes me half an hour in the bathroom with tweezers to get most of them out, but once I emerge again, I hear Mom working at her wheel. I call her supplier and arrange for her to come by today with her truckload of supplies and write the check I promised.

Then I shower, dress in my most comfortable jeans and a plain s.h.i.+rt, and put on minimal make up. Eyeliner so that people can see I have a face, not just a pasty oval floating above my shoulders, lip gloss, and a little blusher under my cheekbones to make my face look slimmer. My hair I dry and put up in a ponytail.

It's still early, but I'm not hungry for breakfast. I pack a lunch and walk to school instead.

I'm halfway there when John calls.

"I hope I didn't wake you up. I just wanted to see how you are."

"I'm okay."

"What can I do?"

"Nothing."

"At all? I can't even crack some lame jokes or something?"

"I figured it out."

"Figured what out?"

"Why Mom only cares about her pottery. She's not doing it because she loves it that much, she does it because that's the only thing that takes up her complete attention."

"Uh-huh?"

"She can't forgive herself."

"For what?"

"Abandoning you and the twins. She still loves you so much that she can't deal. If she's not doing pottery, she's beating herself up, and the fact that her pottery doesn't sell means she doesn't feel like she's got a good reason to be doing it, and that's killing her inside. And having me around just makes it worse."

"Why?"

"Because I remind her of everything she left behind."

"So what can I do?"

"I don't know."

"I can forgive her. Do you think that would help?"

"I really don't know."

"Sis..."

"Thanks for trying to solve all my problems. Oh, and Mr. Beale came by to explain that he's running us out of town, basically. That's what got Mom so angry."

"Oh, you're kidding. Is he an idiot? You're going to report him to the police, right?"

"He wasn't threatening about it. He's just taking Mom's stuff out of the gallery."

"Report it. Someone should know."

"It won't make a difference."

"Even so."

"Thanks for looking out for me."

"Always. Okay, listen, I can help Mom find places to sell her pottery. I've seen her work, and it's good. It's more than good, it's amazing. I've got my own little art business. I'm a photographer, this is stuff I know how to do."

"Okay."

"What else? That's Mom. What do you need?"

"Get me adopted? I dunno."

"You can always come live with me."

"Really?" Get away from Mom and all her pent up rage, even if that means having things like a curfew and rules? I'd have someone care when I was gone, someone who'd stay up and talk to me when I'm lonely and give me advice when guys break my heart. And I'd get more hugs like the one my brother gave me before he left.

"Of course. I love you."

"I can't leave Pelican Bluffs," I say. "My whole life is here."

"Yeah, I know. All this bad stuff hasn't spoiled it for you?"

"Not completely."

"Well, you just take care of yourself. I'll call you later, all right?"

"Okay. Love you."

"Love you too."

Someone clears his throat, loudly. "Madison?"

I blink and look up. I'm sitting in the cafeteria, my half eaten lunch on the table in front of me, and Carson and the rest of the Mormon herd are arrayed all around.

"I asked if you were okay," he repeats.

"I think you have your answer," says LaDell, not unkindly.

"What counts as fine after you see your best friend try to kill herself?" says Wendy.

I look down at my lunch and push it away. Every bite I've taken feels like it's turned to rocks in my stomach. "Thanks for caring."

"Yeah, of course we care." LaDell sits down on the bench next to me. "You need anything, you can talk to us, you know?"

"Thanks."

The group of them all sit down at my table, but I put my head down on my arms. At least they're polite enough not to bother me. I figure I've earned one day of rudeness to others. When I lift my head at the end of the lunch hour, they're all gone.

After school I try to call Kailie, and it rings through to voicemail. "Hey, it's Madison," I say after the beep. "Just checking to see you're okay. I'll talk to you later."

Shouts at the end of the hallway catch my attention and I ignore my locker and whatever books I should get out of it for homework and walk towards the chaos instead. The crowd parts to reveal Alex, holding Ryan in a headlock, fist poised to smash his face. People are shouting and cheering and egging the two of them on.

"Alex," I say, loud enough to be heard over the ruckus.

He looks up, and for a panicked moment I fear that Ryan will take advantage of the distraction and shove him out the doors and down the front steps. Only, Ryan is distracted too. He and the rest of his crowd turn to stare at me as if I'm some kind of rules violation. I'm not supposed to be there, caring about their issues.

Alex lets Ryan go, stands up straight, loosens his shoulders, and heads over to me, head slightly bowed.

"Could you not get yourself thrown in jail, please?" I have the sense that everyone's gaping at us, but I don't bother to look to the left or the right. I take Alex's hands in mine and see a trickle of blood trace its way across his knuckles.

I roll my eyes. "Nice. Come on." Grasping his forearm, I lead him out the doors and down the stairs. I sense him looking at me, but don't look back, nor around at anyone else until JP steps out from behind his car. His expression is pure confusion. I glance back and keep on walking. He always said he had no time for drama.

Back at my house, I take Alex into the bathroom where I have to jerk the shower curtain shut to hide the smear of blood by the drain, left over from my bleeding feet this morning. The tweezers I stuff into a drawer. "Sorry about the mess."

I help Alex wash out the wounds and apply Neosporin to his split knuckles. He's back to his silent routine, and here in the tiny bathroom in my house, he seems even taller and more imposing than ever. It doesn't matter that there's only about half a head difference in height between us. I feel like a little kid.

Now Alex gives me that unreadable look of his, the same one he gave me when we were out to eat with his mother. I screw the cap back onto the Neosporin and our reflections in the mirror tilt away as I open the medicine cabinet to put it back.

That dark eyed gaze follows me as I pivot away from the sink, but before I can take a step, he sidles around me, puts a hand on the door and pushes it shut. I look up at him and his expression is the same. His eyes stay locked with mine. I step back and he moves in closer.

He lays his other hand flat against the door on the other side of me, walling me in. His stance is tentative, though. I know if I moved to the right or left, he'd let me go. It's his gaze that pins me in place.

My heel b.u.mps against the door and I can't back up any further. I shut my eyes, not sure if he's going to try to kiss me or what, but it's the pad of his thumb that touches my lips, not his mouth. I can feel him close, though, close enough that his breath dances across my skin. His fingers splay out across my cheek and he sweeps his thumb along my cheekbone.

My next breath comes out shaky as he settles his hand against the side of my neck and strokes the line of my jaw. I open my eyes and see that he hasn't leaned down. He's still staring at me with that unreadable look.

"This one of your games?" I ask.

"No."