Chapter 43
Kai lets me stay at Plant Daddy after closing so I can finish my application to Art Barn. I read through my statement one last time and at 11:53 p.m. I hit send, only seven minutes before the window for applications closes. I’ve spent the last few hours so focused on my submission that I’ve barely noticed Kai has turned off the lights and shut the place down. I’m about to head upstairs and go to bed when I see a light still on in the back. I know he’d hate to waste electricity so I go to turn it off before I leave.
I walk past the counter and Kai’s potting area and through the supply area. A door I’ve never seen open before is ajar and a shaft of light pierces the darkness. I peek my head in and I can’t believe what I see.
‘Mom! What are you doing? What is this?’ The room I thought was just a storage closet has been turned into some kind of makeshift pottery studio. There are shelves with old jars and cans filled with tools that look like they cut through clay or embellish it in some way. On the walls she has pinned sketches of mugs, plates, and some kind of large platter. Hunks of rust-colored clay sealed in plastic bags sit waiting under the large table where my mother is carving something into a vase with a wide bottom and a skinny opening at the top. She has a rainbow headband pulling her hair back, and she’s wearing her The Future is Inclusive T-shirt that has stray clay marks across the vibrant rainbow design.
She pops out her AirPods to talk to me. ‘Sam, I didn’t know you were still here. Did you finish your application? How did it go?’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘What is all this? When did you…’
‘I told you Kai was building something for me. This is it.’ She waves her arm around the room her face a mixture of pride and gratitude. ‘My very own pottery studio. He thinks the mugs he’s been using are too boring for Plant Daddy, and I told him that I used to make things, and he thought I should start it up again.’
‘When did you make things?’ I don’t have any memory of my mom working with clay or even taking a ceramics class.
‘Before you were born and right after. Until Daddy passed really. Don’t you remember all those plates and cups?’ she asks wiping her hands with a towel.
Growing up we had the most unusual dinnerware. All of it was made of pottery and with vivid colors that didn’t seem like they should go together but they did. The details slowly come back to me. The shapes were what you might call experimental. One plate had indentations on the side where you could hold a utensil, and some of the cups had edges shaped like lips, so it felt like you were kissing someone. Like so much of my life they just seemed normal but now that I think about it, there was nothing normal about them.
‘I thought those came from a garage sale or something,’ I say.
‘They came from our garage. I loved making those things, but I had my teaching, and as you were growing up, I started taking on summer school, so there wasn’t really time.’ She turns toward the small sink and fills a cup with water. ‘I guess I lost my way but being here at Plant Daddy with you and everyone has helped me see myself again.’
‘I never knew you wanted to do this,’ I say. I look at my mom and try to see her with fresh eyes. ‘I wish I could have supported you more.’
‘That’s very sweet. I’m glad you know now.’ She turns the water off and places the cup next to her work surface. ‘I want you to know me. Not just as a mom but as a person. And I want to know you. Our relationship is strong.’ She squeezes her small hands into fists and then releases the grip and sits down at her worktable. ‘There isn’t a stronger one. But I also want it to be deep.’ I smile to myself because I think I’ve wanted the same thing. ‘That’s what all this boyfriend stuff was about really.’
‘You made me go on all those dates so you could know me better?’ I ask. It doesn’t make sense but I’m at a point where I think maybe she does know what she’s doing.
‘No, I made you go on those dates so you could know yourself better. I can only truly know you: if you truly know yourself. Then I can love you even more than I do right now. You’re my son and I want to love all of you. It doesn’t matter if you’re single or married or anything like that.’ She puts down the carving tool she had in her hand and looks at me. ‘I thought if you could find someone who saw how wonderful you are that you would be able to see it yourself.’
Immediately I think about being on the roof with Finn and how that felt. He did make me see myself with more confidence than I had before. I could never have even thought about applying to Art Barn before I met him. Mom kept pushing me toward him and I just wanted to run in the opposite direction. She was right all along. ‘But Mom I did find that person.’
‘In Finn?’ she asks. I pause and then nod. ‘I thought so.’ She nods too.
‘But he doesn’t want anything to do with me,’ I say and squeeze my eyes to fight back a tear.
‘Right now, he doesn’t, and maybe he won’t, but you had that connection, and you felt that feeling, and maybe that’s what you needed more than anything. It’s what we all need.’ She stands up and carefully takes a large unfired vase with a round base and fluted opening off the shelf and places it in front of her. ‘Sam, you think I have all these rules to help you find what you need. Maybe I do, but there is only one rule that matters.’
She picks up her carving tool, makes a few more marks in the wet clay and then turns the piece around to show it to me. In beautifully etched letters that cover the entire side of the vase is one word – Love.