The studio, already stuffy and hot, floods with a new rush of warmth. It feels like Ted has pulled the sun right into the space. Like if I stay too long, I might burn.
“What about your work?” I ask.
He scratches his arm, the skin red and blistered. “It can wait.”
My spine goes straight. Stiff as a tree in the woods. “It can?”
He clamps his lips together, breathing out through his nose. “Do you want the help or not? Mara’s hell-bent on moving on with her life, no matter the years we spent here, no matter the history we…” His forehead creases as he trails off. “But if you don’t want me to—”
“I do. Thanks.”
Mara doesn’t have to know. Her No-Ted Rule is petty. A jab at him in the wake of their separation. He has his space, and I have mine, she told me back in high school, a nonanswer to my question of why they were separating in the first place.
“Do you know when she’s getting back?” I ask Ted. I have a fleeting concern that Mara will march into the studio, see that I’ve let Ted inside, and yell at me for not doing as she asked. But the image is all wrong. Mara hardly ever cares enough to yell.
“Eh, I forget,” Ted says, sealing up a box. He’s clumsy with the tape dispenser, clearly unaccustomed to its simple machinery. “In a few days, I think. She’ll be in and out. You know how it is.”
But I don’t. I’ve never understood their arrangement at all, or why it’s only now that Mara’s decided to find a “home base” somewhere else. When I was still in high school, I thought it was because of me. Some last-ditch maternal instinct, scraped up from deep inside her. But even after I left Cedar, she stuck around—when she wasn’t on her cruises, that is. She claims she’s devoted to her spiritual health now. That solidifying the connection between her mind and body is the highest form of art. These days, it’s only in the time between cruises that she ever gets back to work, creating enough pieces to place in galleries and stores. Then she collects her money, funnels it into her Cruise Fund, and the cycle starts all over again. It would be fine—I wouldn’t even question this vocation of hers—except that it’s so un-Mara.
Her studio was always more home to her than the house. In my memories, she’s either heading out the door to get to work, or she’s coming inside after hours away, only to scavenge for food before leaving again. When she did eat, often standing at the sink, her fingers were caked with dried clay. There was sometimes paint or glaze on her arms, and the kitchen would fill with the sharp scent of the chemicals she used in her tiny darkroom. Mara was always drenched and encrusted with her art. Even before the separation, she sometimes slept on the cot in her studio, so she could snap back to work if inspiration struck.
But people change, I guess. Look at Ted. He’s here. With me. Stacking plates in boxes. I can’t wait to tell Eric, even though he’ll tell me I shouldn’t get my hopes up, that Ted probably wants something from me.
He doesn’t, though. We work in silence for fifteen minutes. No Experiments. No interviews. Just Ted handing me wrapped pieces of pottery. Just me receiving each one like it’s a gift, then placing it in a box. It goes quicker with the two of us, and it isn’t long before Ted moves to the island counter, opens drawers to pack up sculpting tools.
The point chisels chill me, exactly as they always did. Some look flat and harmless, but even those have a sharpness to them. I leave Ted to it, turn my attention to the closed door in the back that leads to Mara’s Break Room. She said she’d take care of it—by which I assume she meant dismantle it—but I’d like to see it one more time. Its glorified rage. Its dazzling grief.
I’m halfway to the door when Ted’s voice booms out, “It’s locked.” His back is to me, his hands on the island.
I try the knob anyway. He’s right; it doesn’t budge. “Do you have the key?” I ask.
Ted turns to look at me. “No.” He rolls his eyes. “Only Mara has the key. But there’s nothing to pack in there. You know what the