My fingers burned and stung from phantom abrasions, memories of that night long ago. The clay, cool and moist, would soothe them.
At the house, I closed the blinds and kept the lights turned down low while I cooked myself a proper meal. I slept for a few hours on a real bed where I could stretch out. I awoke before dawn. While the coffee brewed, I added more candles and water bottles to the box in the car. I watched the sun rise as I drove back to the Hollow.
I’d picked up a bucket and filled water containers at Cub Creek Pottery the evening before. That would be my best option for handwashing after working with the clay. I could’ve worked at the shop. For that matter, I could’ve slept at the shop at least as comfortably as I could at the cabin, and there I had a proper sink and toilet. But in the shop, nothing stirred me. Never had. The work I did there felt utilitarian, an occupation to show the world I was useful, had a purpose, and could earn some money, because otherwise the world got curious and then suspicious.
Making pottery and managing the store had been part of what I’d done to occupy my days while Ellen attended school, worked her hourly jobs, participated in after-school activities. Together, we’d attended church and involved ourselves in activities there and in the community, and I’d made plans for my future and the return to Cooper’s Hollow. I’d thought I was waiting for Ellen to graduate, for us both to be ready to move forward to this next stage of our lives. Maybe I hadn’t been honest with myself. Everything I’d done, all the efforts to rebuild and move back to the Hollow, seemed to have had the opposite effect, zeroing in on the core problem, almost tempting fate.
I unloaded my car and set up the bucket of washing water with a bag of rags handy in the corner. The clay went on the table, with my tools next to them. But then my resolve flagged. It was early in the morning. I didn’t think anyone was on the jobsite yet. I picked up my cup of coffee and walked over to the house.
From the cabin door, the view of the back of the house was nearly unobstructed. The full-length windows were arrayed like a gallery across the central portion of the back wall, and in their midst was a four-panel French-door arrangement. The deck was nearly completed now, except for the steps. I stole a quick look across at the cemetery, but then turned away and touched the side of the building to brace myself for the big step up.
I wandered through the rooms knowing each by heart. The study here. Beside it was Ellen’s room. The kitchen was on the far side of the great room. And so on. Gran wouldn’t have known what to do with all this space, but I thought she might’ve enjoyed trying to figure it out. I stopped by the fireplace hearth. The fireplace was like a marker, the one corresponding feature between old and new, like an anchor holding steady in the same spot. A few feet from here was where Gran had her bed, and around the corner from there would’ve been my room. Most of the original house would’ve fit in the great room.
I’d never felt cramped in our small house. In the new house, no one could feel cramped. Space, or the lack of it, mattered not at all. It was who you were with, or weren’t with, that made the difference.
This house, under construction, felt like a waiting space. A space that was growing and becoming but that hadn’t arrived in its own time yet.
I stopped short. The front door was open. Liam was standing on the porch with a chisel, seeing me as I saw him. He must’ve noticed my car and known I was here somewhere, and when he’d opened the door, he must’ve realized I was inside the house, not hiding in the cabin, yet he’d stayed. Did that mean anything?
“Hannah.”
“Liam.” I cleared my throat. I couldn’t stop myself from immediately asking, “How’s Ellen?”
He scratched his jaw. He looked freshly shaved. When he stared at me, I could see Ellen’s dark eyes focused on me through his.
“She’s good.” He stared down at his boots and then slowly raised his face. “I don’t know what to make of any of this. Why, Hannah?”
About twenty feet separated us. It was so early the light outside didn’t really penetrate, and I knew I must be in shadow, a silhouette at best, to Liam. I moved toward the door, toward Liam and the morning light.
“You don’t look well,” he said.
There was something different about him. He looked like a man who’d gotten very good news. He stood taller, his hair was neater, and his shirt was tucked in. Little things. Small touches that contributed to the overall impression.
“How is she?”
“I told her she should talk to you. She isn’t willing yet. But soon, I’m sure.” He went silent, and his jaw tightened. He hit his fist lightly against the post he’d been carving. “I don’t understand this, Hannah.”
“You know most of it. What specifically do you not understand? That I kept your daughter as my own?”
He leaned against the post. “Actually, no. I’ve got that figured out. Don’t misunderstand, you were wrong to hide the truth for as long as you did, and it was wrong of you to keep Ellen away from her family and me.”
“Ellen. You called her Ellen.”
“That’s what she wants.”
“I see.” A tiny spark wanted to light in my heart. I tamped it down. Too soon.
“What I don’t understand is why, after all these years, you told her.”
His question stopped my breath. I thought I was prepared. Apparently not, because my knees gave way, and Liam was there, suddenly, with his hands on my arms, supporting me.
“Steady, there,” he said.
I touched my face. It felt numb.
“Sorry,” I said. “I thought I could do this.”
“Do what?”
“Face you.”
“Well, sit down before you fall down.”
There was no chair or stool, so Liam helped me to the floor, the front door threshold. I leaned back against the lintel and clasped my knees.
“Sorry, I’m not usually such a delicate flower. I seem to faint a lot these days. I really created a storm, didn’t I?”
Liam shook his head. “Part of me is angry, but at the same time, I’m almost grateful to you. I was . . .” He sighed, then looked at me. “I was in jail, picked up for a parole violation just before Sheryl brought Trisha—Ellen, I mean—to my father’s house. I was headed back to prison, and Sheryl was angry to be on her own again.”
“Prison,” I echoed.
“So she dumped Ellen at the house with my old man, who’d never been a good father to me, in a house I can’t begin to imagine the state it was in.”
“He did his best by her, I think. It was over the winter, and we didn’t know she was there. He didn’t bring her to us until May.”
“Sheryl left her there in November.”