Page 137 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls
Speaking their reality word again faded into a moot point tonight. It’d served its new purpose: as a general check-in, to pause and speak their minds.
Slowly, she nodded off, thanking Granddad Walter for that love of blueberries.
36
The word ‘odd’ bothered Skye Florentine, as it’d been an artifact of her past, along with its variants: ‘weirdo,’ ‘abnormal,’ or even ‘unique,’ with a leer that hinted at insult.
While a nostalgic fondness hued her childhood, nobody escaped name-calling. Nobody escaped the adolescent bullying watered down as a rite-of-passage amongst peers. And it hurt. She’d retreat deep into the woods, where white-tailed deer and dragonflies didn’t have the awareness or the vocabulary.
Her days with Celene ripened her experience of the city, where she’d forgotten the rapture of blending into the crowd. To dress, talk, and be herself without anyone thinking her odd. Despite her romantic past, plans of alternating between Pennsylvania and New York were more exciting than ominous.
Maybe it just took the right person.
Yielding, PA wasn’t exactly idyllic, yet she could firmly place its leafy, lush scent after rainfall in her top three. Coming close behind was the medley of woodsy and floral when she hugged her parents. It transported her to youthful, carefree years, when time seemed bountiful and packed with endless possibilities.
Skye couldn’t help reflecting on Celene’s thoughts on the older population, on the accomplishment of surviving this world and its traumas. Having decades ahead invited more hardships, more unknowns. Including the stress of having to buckle up andinitiate.
But it also brought joys, which Skye chose to focus on as she’d driven home, the Poconos Mountains creeping into view.
Her parents and grandmother finished all the foraged berries and mushrooms, but their co-op market groceries didn’t lack flavor or freshness. On Skye’s first night back, with Gael’s sweet potato and chickpea stew simmering in a slow cooker, her family embraced sitting around the table to talk things out.
Skye’s botanical statues had been arranged in a row on the table. Crucial stuff, to see Luce’s controlled chaos of tiles and bottles absent.
“You gave me time to think,” her grandmother told her, seated to Skye’s immediate left. Her parents sat across from them, tactile-oriented as they analyzed hinged bits and ran their fingers over gradient glass.
A true Florentine, Skye also grazed a smooth stem of the Wild Lupine, full of ideas of how she’d complete this one after the Forever Fuchsia. “Oh. I’ve been thinking, too. A lot.”
In a simple tunic shirt for around-the-house work, Luce held up a hand. “I’ll go first. Why didn’t you tell me about your studio?”
“We showed her.” Skye’s mother lifted her shoulders in a bashful apology. “Luce asked us how you could do all this, and it was a lucky guess you used that space.”
“Hidden in thewall,” her dad emphasized, neat black and gray hairs surrounding his grin. “We peeped around for only a few minutes to confirm.”
Skye cringed at the sting of exposure. Their finding out about her art space had been inevitable, though it broached something she held dear. Something untouched, only hers.
“Thanks,” Skye croaked and met Luce’s eyes again. “I loved living here with you—” mellowing, she reworded, “with all of you. Immersed in our customs and Luce’s art. Making these sculptures came to me after moving in to help with Granddad. After his third stroke, you know he couldn’t...uh, speak as clearly.”
With an around-the-clock home aide, Skye, Luce, and her parents cared for Granddad Walter in his final weeks. Sometimes he’d been withdrawn, other times incomprehensible. Then, in sweet spots, the man she knew peeked through the cracks like sunlight.
“I’d spend hours sitting on the floor next to his bed, organizing tesserae, trying to replicate his methods and speed. I don’t think I’ll ever get that fast.” Relieved to see everyone smile, she stroked a glass petal, resuming. “One evening, I’d been bored, fooling around with leftover tiles—you know, chipped or scraped pieces. Assuming responsibility for Luce’s shop had me stressed, really jaded. I zoned out; I sulked. And I remember him coughing, like a wheeze, and before I could stand and find his water, he said he liked what I was making.”
Using a bottle of super glue found under a stand, she’d begun absently building a little statue. A very rudimentary daisy, compared to her creations today. How she’d grown in that short period.
“You’d make floral looms as a child, but that was about it.” Aisha shook her head, her natural hair banded in a neat downward puff at her neck. “So Walter saw your first art piece.”
“Pretty much,” Skye accepted. She remembered him flipping the daisy back and forth in his palm, rumbling in a hum that’d confused Skye. It’d been a silly way to busy her fingers, butseeing him look at it for so long, an unrealized pride blossomed. Deep in her chest, cozy and foreign. “My artistic journey became an outlet, without comparisons to Luce. When Granddad died, it was the last thing he and I had together.”
Luce’s gaze hadn’t left Skye’s face the whole speech. Her dark eyes wore more lines than before Granddad passed, though they remained keen, ingesting everything. “Walter sees something creative in you. We all do.”
Her parents murmured their agreement, wrapped in baggy tees and their usual jewelry. A mishmash of household, off-camera comfort, and their immutable personalities. All the acceptance in the world didn’t mean Skye would be devoid of expectations, of pressure to partner up with Luce. Or more pressure to take Walter’s place.
Skye didn’t wish for separation from her family. Only the necessary distance to figure more about herself, with less influence. Mental images of her and Celene in their love nest, working on their respective interests, brought on the same warmth as her grandfather’s regard for her uneven daisy.
She brought Luce’s hands upon her knees, thumb running over the history of lines in her knuckles, of the glossiness of sweet-smelling lotion. “I’m sorry for breaking two of your reliefs,” Skye breathed, letting tears form. “I’m sorry for changing your vision without your permission. I’m sorry Granddad’s gone. I hope you don’t see me moving out as abandonment.”
Luce spun her full lips, scratched a nose similar to Skye’s dad’s. “Well, isn’t this something.” Her laugh came out humorless. “At the rec center, I have friends whose grandchildren don’t even call on the holidays. And here you go, apologizing for wanting your own home.”
Home.
