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When I was a boy I had startled you as you held the newly formed pot. You had pressed your fingers into the sides of it, indenting the perfect cylindrical shape. “Simon! Fu-udge”, you had muttered, setting it down slowly on the edge of your worktable. “Honey, the clay is still wet. It’s malleable”. Your voice had denied the sense of frustration, you had sighed heavily before catching yourself. My lip had quivered, I had understood that I had broken something precious to you, had ruined something. I could see where your fingers had marred the smooth clay. Tears had swelled up before I could catch myself.
The clay had meant nothing then to you, you forgot it as you knelt to your feet, took my cheeks in your hands. “Honey, Simon, it’s ok. Shhh. I’ll make a new one”. In my child’s eyes I had done something unforgivable. You smeared traces of clay into my skin as your thumb wiped a tear away, trying to comfort me, but I was not used to the tired sound of your voice or the frustration you had shown for that split second. It had been a huge revelation, the first time I knew I would let you down.
It would not be the last time, I think you knew that even then. I was a troublesome child, throwing baseballs into Ms. Jump’s living room and running off before I was caught. Dad dished out the funds to replace the window, no one caught on, but you pulled me aside and asked why I acted like this. I couldn’t say. I stopped returning for dinner on time long before the Break happened, hiding to hear you call my name, the worried tone ringing out in your voice. Dad was silent when I came in, he usually was, but later he’d tell me “Don’t worry your mother like that”. I still did. I always did.
When you moved out I couldn’t understand why you would leave. I thought it was my fault, but you assured me again and again. No, there was something else, something I’d understand when I was older. You were only a block away, with some short woman named Maurine, but I didn’t understand why you couldn’t just live with Dad and I. Dad didn’t explain things. Now, for your sake, I’m glad he had stayed quiet. I’m glad he had not made a fuss, like the boys in my grade did. He had married a dyke and now he no longer was. He didn’t seem to notice much of a change other than doing our laundry. He came to my ball games, took us out to the diner afterwards. We got breakfast for dinner, him eating corned beef hash and eggs, I with fluffy pancakes drenched in syrup. The days were quieter and did not feel as sweet.
I was not a good son. I did not care to try. I could have easily walked over to see you and Maurine any day of the week. But the house was different over there and it didn’t feel like home despite your bright voice and laughter. I did not feel like I belonged, even when Maurine helped you lug a full bedset into the spare room, painted it my favorite shade of blue. I only stayed over when Dad insisted and that was not often. You would come over to the house, down to the plot of land out back which the studio sat on. Maurine helped you paint it, a bright pink color like your cheeks when she made you laugh. I stopped inviting myself in to watch the wheel turn, to watch you mold clay into beautiful shapes. You would tell me to come, try to ply me with lemonade on hot days, a tin of cookies, open arms of a hug. I didn’t take you up on them.
You did try, You were a good mother. You came to my school plays, came and made dinner every Saturday night. Tried to stay in my life, drove me around town for treats, helped me with Ms. Elenor’s English homework when I just about flunked out. You always called me your good boy, your little man. Sewed me a suit for my first school dance. Picked me up from the police station one night, didn’t give me the talk on how I was ruining my life. Jamie, Ms. Jump’s nephew, and I had gotten caught down at the manmade lake. Trashed, drunk on something he’d found in his grandfather’s cabinet. It’d tasted rank, Jamie had tasted it a second time as it forced its way back up on an officer’s shoes. You’d just told me you loved me, that this wasn’t the right path. “You didn’t take the right path”, I’d growled out. “Could have stayed with Dad”. You’d grown quiet, put your hand over mind.
“Could have, yes. But, Simon, neither of us would have been happy”. Dad had started seeing the waitress at the diner, but I didn’t know that until later. Things just would never go back to the way they had been. I just couldn’t accept that, then.
-
“She left you the studio”, Maurine says. “I don’t know why, we both know you never come back here. In all these years, I’ve never seen you set foot in that building”. There is an ice in her words and I think that maybe, probably, I deserve it.
“I don’t know either, Maurine”. I shrug, looking out at the rose-colored shack. “She should have left it to you”.
“My hands are too old for that now”, she replies softly. “I couldn’t keep up with her. And then it got too much for her too”.
I nod, but I hadn’t know when my mother had stopped making things. I hadn’t paid attention in your conversations, had focused on what I thought was important: doctor’s feedback, dodging questions about my love life,
“I’m sorry, Maurice”. It is much too late in the day for this to be the first time I apologize for her loss. It is much too late in her life for me to apologize for the anger I held against her. I cannot apologize to my mother, so I apologize to her proxy. The woman she had spent nearly forty years at my mother’s side.
“I know, honey”. Her voice sounds older with everything unspoken but we leave it at that. I wordlessly point to the studio, Maurice nods. I should go check it out. Perhaps I can say goodbye to you there. “It’s messy in there, beware of the dust”.
I did not think you had remembered that day. But here I am, in your old studio. Everything covered in dust; both the steady, eternal layer left from working with clay and the heavy, dirty bits that come with time. Everything has settled here, in a room that is so familiar and so foreign now. I have not been in this room since I was still a boy, Mom. I was too short to see all the things on your top shelf, the personal shelf you kept your trophies on. There is a mug there, rimmed with dust. Plain white, nothing worth noting really. It’s simple, elegant in a way but for the sharp indent of fingers thrust into the side. I pick it up, feeling the smooth glaze cool under my fingers. My fingers slot into the holes, tracing your hand as it had thirty-seven years before. I realize in that moment that this cup is the closest thing to holding my mother’s hand I have left.