I look at the table, running a hand through my hair. “D’you reckon everyone will get on?”
Cat pulls me to her. “Course they will. It’s nearly Christmas, plus we’ve been cooking all afternoon. They’re duty-bound. By the way,” she says, turning me so my silver top glitters in the candlelight, “you look truly lovely.”
“Thought I might dress up a little.”
“You always dress up for Willa,” she says, narrowing her eyes, “your first love.”
“I should never have told you that.”
“Doorbell,” she says. “I’ll go.”
I hear voices in the hallway: Cat first, then Jamie’s deep-toned reply. I lean against the table, face turned toward the kitchen door. And then there she is, Willa.
2 The View from Tea Mountain Robyn
There was a time in my life when everything seemed to be breaking.
***
This was the summer after I turned seventeen and I was home from school with Willa in tow. As soon as we arrived, the car broke down, which meant for the first three days we were completely marooned. “So walk,” my mum said. “It’s only a couple of hours into town.”
Shortly after that Mum sat on her glasses and told everyone that she couldn’t see a damned thing past the tape my dad had used to repair them. My mother compensated for her lack of sight by becoming even louder and more formidable. Willa jumped every time she opened her mouth, issuing orders and demands to whosoever was closest. To be fair, I’d done my best to prep her for meeting my family. They’re all completely barking, I’d told her; just be warned.
Mum’s favorite bowl broke too. It was the one that always sat in the middle of the kitchen table. Sometimes it had things left in it—keys, or fruit, or notes on scraps of paper—but mostly it didn’t, because it was beautiful. It had a sandy-colored rim, a central line of bright turquoise running through its middle and, at its base, a deep pool of cobalt glaze shot through with tiny green bubbles, like a blue hole in a sea. One day it was there. The next day, it wasn’t. A different bowl had been put in its place, a bowl which, to the untrained eye, was almost the same, only the yellow glaze had a slightly grayer hue, the line of turquoise wasn’t as clear, and the blue glaze had little flecks of burgundy in it. Still lovely, nobody was disagreeing with that, but definitely not the same bowl. Nobody owned up to that one. My dad shrugged, his expression hangdog. My brother shrugged.
“It wasn’t me,” I said. I liked that bowl as much as anyone. Dad had made it, and, as I’ve said, it was beautiful. Anyway, it could have been anyone because we had a lot of visitors coming to the house around then, most of whom weren’t even invited.
The plumbing broke and water flooded the kitchen. The stock fence broke and a whole bunch of sheep marched in off the moor, eating everything in sight. The gate to the chicken coop went as well.
Things were breaking. And the thing I broke was my arm.
I’d found a tin of moss-green paint at the back of my dad’s workshop and had volunteered the two of us—Willa and me—to paint the kitchen cupboards. We put on old shirts and loud music. I’d picked out Madonna but Dad had insisted on Tina Turner, because, he said, there was no better music to paint to and, as it turned out, he was right.
I took charge of the high cupboards. I was stretched out at the top of a ladder with a loaded brush belting out “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” one leg swung out behind partly for the counterbalance but mainly for the pose, when Bach, our black lab, came wandering through. He was fifteen by then, with a completely white muzzle, arthritic legs, breath you could smell from ten paces and milky-blue eyes the vet said he couldn’t do anything for. Yap, the little Jack Russell cross, had taken to riding on his back like some sort of pilot. It didn’t help Bach to see any better but it definitely gave him a certain swagger, the air of a misspent youth in a circus. Well, anyway, Bach bashed into the bottom of the ladder and I was basically catapulted across the kitchen, landing with one arm twisted behind me and an excruciating pain shooting out from my shoulder.
It was the first and I think probably the only time in my life that I’ve ever been completely, totally winded. The air had been entirely knocked out of my lungs and I couldn’t say a thing. There was noise, loud noise, but it wasn’t coming from me. It was coming from Willa.
Everyone came running.
“Don’t move her,” Mum said. “She might have broken her neck.”
From my position on the floor, I now had an excellent view of the kitchen ceiling, which had acquired a splatter of bright green paint flicked across its entire length, like seaweed, even an entire kelp forest. Or a mystic dragon.
“Wow,” I said, “that’s amazing.”
“She’s not making any sense,” Mum said. “She’s banged her head.”
“Perhaps you should call an ambulance, Nigel,” Dad said. My brother’s name wasn’t Nigel but I usually called him that on account of his general geekiness.
“I think it’s a bit much,” my brother said, “when your own father starts calling you Nigel.”
“It’s a bit much,” I croaked, attempting the nerdy voice I used to imitate my brother.
“Just call an ambulance, Michael,” said Dad.
Mum dug around at the back of the kitchen pantry in order to find the first-aid kit.
“What’s this?” she asked, emerging with a brown-paper bag she’d found hidden at the back. Inside the bag was her favorite bowl, in bits. She brought the pieces out one by one and placed them on the kitchen table, a look of astoundment on her face. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “We’ll talk about this later.” Shaking her head, she took a pair of kitchen scissors from the drawer next to the sink.
“That’s it,” she said. She furrowed her brow, a vengeful look in her eyes.
“What are those for?” I said.
“We need to cut your shirt off,” Mum said. She snapped the scissors above my head.
“You definitely do not,” I said, trying to sit up.
Mum passed the scissors to Dad. My dad passed them back to my mother.
“Don’t move,” she said. “We need to see what’s happened.” I thought it was pretty clear what had happened, given the angle of my arm. “I can’t believe you broke my favorite bowl,” she said, “and didn’t even say anything.” She started hacking up one side of the shirt while I tried to hold it down on the other.
“It wasn’t me,” I said. “I really like this shirt.”
“This shirt? This ancient thing of your dad’s that you’ve requisitioned for painting?”
“Mum, come on. Plus, my bra’s ancient. I told you I needed a new bra. It really wouldn’t be too much to ask to have some nice bras. And I can go in the car. I’m okay. It just really hurts.”
“Cancel the ambulance,” Dad said. “She can go in the car.” My brother returned to the kitchen and knelt by my side. Meanwhile my mother had cut away the last bit of my shirt. My entire family stared at my torso.
