Page 4 of Beneath Pearly Irish Skies
Barry’s words echoed in her mind.Centering is all about feel. You don’t need your eyes. You need your heart.
The clay settled in the cradle of her palms, and she let herselffeel. The smooth earth against her skin. The speed of the motor. The wheel holding everything in place. Kade’s arms banded around her to anchor her as her arms started to shake.
Another shiver rolled through her body as his chest pressed lightly against her back. The clay started to wobble under her hands, but she forced it back to the center.
A wave of intuition washed over her.
The clay didn’t like to be forced any more than she did.
It simply wanted things to be easy between them, the way they used to be.
Before things had gotten hard with Tyson. Her mind spit out memories of him waving goodbye from his black Ford Jeep. He’d always been leaving. When she was pregnant. When she was a scared and unsure new mother and their newborn son wouldn’t sleep. When Ollie first started kindergarten and couldn’t stop crying.
He’d left for the last time around the holidays last year and hadn’t come home. He never would. Old pain and hurt radiated through her as she cradled the clay, crying.
Her heart was like a messy piece of clay, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She needed a new one, free of all the sadness of the past.
She would make herself a new one.
Hadn’t that been the reason she’d been drawn to pottery? She’d watched a potter at an arts center work when she’d gone on a field trip in tenth grade. The woman had told them the great thing about pottery was that you could make anything you wanted. “The sky’s the limit,” she’d said and shown it was true by making one magical piece after another. Until that moment, Megan had never imagined such possibilities were available to her, and she’d found herself wanting to do pottery. She too wanted to be able to make anything.
Now, sitting in front of the wheel with Kade behind her, she opened up to the limitless potential she’d once believed in.
Her hands seemed to merge with the clay, a feeling she’d thought lost to her. But no, it was a feeling she could recapture. She formed the clay into a centered mound and pressed her thumbs into the disc to open it up.
“There you go, love,” Kade whispered in her ear.
He embraced her then, and she welcomed the comfort. His warmth and gentleness had more of the shards around her heart falling away. When he pulled away, her hands seemed to fly with the clay. She opened her eyes and watched as she pulled the wet clay into what Barry called a jello mold with a bottom. Then she cradled the walls and started to pull up. Gently. Because that’s what it needed.
The clay moved with her, and she shaped it until it was six inches tall. Before she knew it, she was angling her hands and pulling the walls out on the diagonal to form the sides.
As the bowl formed, joy shot through her heart, thick and heady, like the rain that was now tapping against the windows.
She grabbed her plastic scraper and lightly pressed it to the clay bottom of her bowl, smoothing the curve. She firmed the rim and slowed the wheel’s speed until it stopped completely. That ugly misshapen clay had transformed into a thing of beauty.
Her breathing was harsh in the silence as she stared at it, her chest full of raw emotion.
“I did it!” she whispered, feeling more tears swell in her eyes.
“You sure did,” Kade said behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “It’s beautiful, Megan. It might be the most beautiful bowl ever made.”
She turned on her stool, bumping his well-muscled leg. He moved to give her room, and they faced each other. His brown eyes looked as warm and inviting as usual, but it was the smile on his face that had all the tension leaving her. She gripped her apron, fighting the urge to hug him.
“I don’t know if it’s the most beautiful bowl in the world, but I’ll take it. In fact, I’m going to give it to you when it’s finished, Kade. To thank you.”
He shook his head. “No, love.”
“But I want to.”
“You keep it, Megan. It has your all your passion and sorrow and joy in it. When you look at it, let it help you remember how you got a piece of your soul back today.”
Her throat grew tight. Oh, these Irish. They had a way of talking about life and people with a poetry she hadn’t known existed outside of books. “A piece of my soul?”
“The very same.” He pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, the clay dry on his fingers. “Didn’t you feel it?”
She met his eyes, the gold in them shining brightly. The color reminded her of the browns and golds in the temmoku glaze she loved. She would use that glaze for this soul bowl. To remind herself that he’d been there the day she got her center back. After ten long years without it.
“Thank you, Kade.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “But I still want to do something for you.”
