CHAPTER 6
POV: Vivienne
The town was called Port Orford, and no one from San Francisco had ever heard of it.
I liked that about it.
I found the warehouse on the third day. Half-collapsed on the north side, salt-eaten wood, a roof that leaked in three places when the wind came off the water hard enough.
The real-estate woman looked at me like I had lost my mind when I said I would take it.
Cash. No inspection. No repairs required.
She handed me the keys and drove away before I could change my mind.
I changed nothing.
The main room still smelled of old fish and diesel and wet rope.
I swept the concrete once, pushed the debris into a corner, and set up a makeshift wedging table from two sawhorses and a sheet of plywood I bought at the only hardware store in town.
The kiln was a small electric model I had shipped from a supplier in Portland under a different name.
It sat in the center of the space like a black heart.
I started working the same afternoon.
The clay felt different here. Coarser. It fought back harder under my palms. I let it.
The pieces that came out of my hands were nothing like the quiet, refined forms I used to make in the Oregon studio.
These were large. Brutal. Twisted spines that arched as if in pain.
Open mouths lined with sharp teeth of dried clay.
Forms that looked like they had been broken on purpose and then forced to stand anyway.
I worked until my shoulders burned and my fingers split. The cuts filled with gray slip. I didn’t bandage them. The sting kept me present.
Cassian called the first night.
I watched the screen light up on the windowsill and did not move. The phone went dark. A minute later a voicemail notification appeared. I deleted it without listening. He called again at midnight. Then at two. Then at five in the morning. Each time I let it ring out and erased the evidence.
The emails started on the second day.
Subject lines that began with “I’m sorry” and ended with requests for a call, a meeting, a conversation.
I opened none of them. I didn’t need to.
I already knew the shape of the words inside—measured, careful, still trying to manage the situation the way he managed everything else.
I dragged the entire folder into the trash and emptied it.
The work continued.
I slept on a cot in the back corner when my hands could no longer hold their shape.
The ocean was close enough that I could hear it at night, a low, constant roar that matched the quiet rage still sitting under my ribs.
It no longer felt sharp. It felt steady.
Useful. Like a kiln that had finally reached temperature.
On the fifth day I called Helen Cho.
Helen ran a small but respected gallery in the Pearl District in Portland.
Years ago, when she was still trying to stay open after a bad divorce and a worse lease, I had bought three of her emerging artists outright and never asked for a discount.
I had done it quietly, through a third party, because at the time I still believed quiet was the same thing as kind.
She answered on the second ring.
“Vivienne?”
“I need a show,” I said. “Full gallery. Six weeks from now if you can clear the calendar. I’ll handle transport and installation. You won’t have to pay me anything up front.”
Silence for three seconds.
Then: “Send me photos of the work.”
I did. Twelve images, shot on my phone in the gray coastal light. No explanations. No titles yet.
Helen called back in eleven minutes.
“You’re on,” she said. “No questions asked.”
I hung up and looked at the pieces drying on every flat surface of the warehouse. Broken spines. Open mouths. Forms that refused to be decorative. They would fill her clean white space like an accusation.
I named the exhibition in my head that night while the rain ticked against the leaking roof.
The Things He Never Looked At.
The next morning I was mixing a new batch of clay when the black SUV appeared.
It parked directly across the narrow street, engine off, windows tinted too dark for a fishing town. No one got out. The vehicle simply sat there, facing the warehouse, as if it had all the time in the world.
I stood at the window with wet clay on my hands and watched it.
My pulse stayed even.
The rage stayed quiet.
And I did not look away.