Like The Waves

“I had to sweet talk Mick into giving me that sheet metal, so you better make something good with it, you hear me Ro?” He smiled. Ever since their previous adventure, Harper had really become like a daughter to him. So much so that he didn’t much mind how she kept shortening his name. He guessed that Ro was better than her first nickname for him, Rose, and Rose a lot worse than his real name Russford.

“Loud and clear,” he said, fidgeting with the thin metal in front of him.

She partially exited the doorway, looking back. He sometimes wondered if she remembered she was fourteen, if she could see her age as clearly as he did in her unwrinkled face and small frame. “Hey, but really, no pressure. I know it’s been a while, since…” she and him looked down at the dilapidated wooden floor. “Well. Have a good day,” she called over her shoulder, closing the door.

He placed his rough palm against the dirty metal, the coldness refreshing. He looked around. The little workshop he had carved out of his even littler house was cluttered with tools and scraps, abandoned projects from years ago and new work orders from the past week, yet he’d never found it suffocating before now. He walked a couple steps to the opposite wall and grabbed a large saw, then returned to his sheet of metal and sat down. Without thinking he started cutting out a shape, becoming more and more dissatisfied with what he was creating. With an exasperated shout, he threw the metal across the room, where it clattered against a broken metal pot.

He collapsed onto his stool, disappointment weighing his shoulders down. He knew it. He knew he couldn’t do it. How long had it been? Almost seven, eight years? He raked his fingers through his long hair. How did he create pieces before? Where did he get all his ideas?

He stood up from his stool, walked through the door into the cluttered kitchen, and turned into the dank hallway. He faced his left, looking at the closed door. Leaning down slightly, he traced his fingers along old, faded doodling. He smiled at the memory, of him being so mad at her for drawing where she wasn’t supposed to. Remembered her little fingers gripping onto his upper leg, her tinny voice saying, “I just wanted to make what you make, daddy.”

Russford straightened himself, then turned the dull silver knob. The bedroom was a mix of old and new. Harper’s clothes and shoes were thrown messily along the far wall under the window, probably in some sort of protest. He insisted she stay on nights when she blew off too much time after dinner or when a storm broke out. But the ratty quilt with hand-sewn flowers, the small nightstand with a child’s fingernail carvings, the walls filled with metalwork of castles and fish princesses and dolphin knights, were all his first daughter. His Willow. He walked over to the low bed and sat on it, his knees jutting up past his elbows.

He laid down, rested his head on her pillow. He was too long for her bed, his calves dangling awkwardly off the foot of the bed. But he barely felt the discomfort as he remembered when he would put Willow to bed, tucking her blonde hair behind her small ear. Remembered how she came home one day after school, not her seven-year-old bouncy self, and thinking that it was just a bug. Just a temporary illness that would be over in a flash. Remembered how her skin got sallower, how her forehead burned against the back of his hand and her breathing became shallow.

He stood up abruptly, needing to be elsewhere. The room was too small, the window not letting in enough sunlight, the metalwork screaming his past fortune and present failure. He strode out of the room and into the hallway, across the kitchen and through the front door, slamming it shut. Rubbing his temples, he forced himself to feel his breath enter his lungs, to expel all the stale oxygen. He looked around. People were bustling about; it must’ve been high noon, lunch time. Not that he could tell from the cloudy sky. He walked down the few steps of his rickety porch, then turned left, toward the docks.

The further he walked the number he felt to the memory of his daughter, of his passion for metalwork. Watching his step along the roughly cobbled walkway, he wondered why he even thought to start making art again. To feel as happy as he was before? To make extra money?

Soon the staccato steps upon rock turned into sonorous clunks on wood. He made his way through the crowd to the edge of the dock. Nobody liked being there, especially after seeing the incoming ships dock and clean out their latrines, dumping the waste into the murky water. It was perfect, despite the smell and darkened wood, to be alone. To sit and think, or sit and not think.

Russford lowered himself carefully, letting his booted feet dangle off the edge. He had never got to take Willow there, not that there was much to see. Still, he imagined what he would do; carry her in his arms, so that she didn’t run off or trip over herself and fall into the filthy water. Tell her softly how his father had taken him to this exact spot, back when it was a bit cleaner and less smelly, to learn how to fish. How he was quite a terrible fisherman, too distracted by the water lapping softly against the wooden pillars that kept the dock upright, the ripples sloshing against each other to create more ripples.

He shook his head from the memory. Yet he found he wasn’t much different from the boy of his childhood as he got sucked into the beauty of the small waves, the ripples building off one another and, if they traveled just right, building off of themselves. There was a type of ingenuity in the kinetic forces of water, he thought. How it recycled its own energy to create something new, another wave. He let the thought marinate in his head, his shoulders relaxing at the peace it gave him.

Russford stood up from the edge of the dock. The traffic had slowed considerably; his inner turmoil had sped up time. Wiping his hands against his dank pants, he walked slowly home, an idea forming in his mind. One of the best he’d had in a while.

He entered his front door into the kitchen, walking through to the workshop. Sidestepping past the heavy wooden table, he picked up his previous failure, selecting a few salvageable pieces and setting them on his stool. He grabbed a thick-leaded pencil and traced shapes out of the remaining metal Harper had gotten for him, his hands confident and outlines accurate. Taking his saw, he cut out all the shapes. He turned around and grabbed his mask that hung from the wall, then began welding the pieces together. He worked quietly, the bright sparks ricocheting off the metal and diffusing warmly onto his long sleeves.

After some hours of steady work, he lifted his mask and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He took as far a step back as he could in the small room, eyeing his handiwork. All the shapes were almost in place, but he knew it wouldn’t be complete once he finished assembling it. Brow furrowed, he set down his torch and mask, then walked through the kitchen into his daughter’s room again.

He looked at the walls, at his past creations. He knew Willow would never allow him to take her princess fish, but he thought a dolphin knight and a seaweed dining table would be okay. He walked over and, reaching above the bed, unhooked the two sculptures from their place on the wall. He grabbed a couple others; the school of fish and mermaid peace scroll, which she had written on herself. He exited the room and returned to his workshop, gently setting down the pieces he’d selected on the wood floor to continue assembling his sculpture.

Once all the metal shapes were in place, he grabbed the first piece he took from his daughter’s room: the dolphin knight. He carefully disassembled it, then welded it onto his newest piece. He had painted all his previous sculptures in colors he thought Willow would like: yellow, sparkly silver, purple. He moved onto the next piece, and the next, until his fingers were sore with the heat of his torch and his upper back complained against his hunched position. Russford straightened himself, taking off his mask again, satisfied.

In front of him was a massive wave, pieced together to create a more rugged and dynamic shape. All through it he’d placed detailing of the shape the water was taking in the yellows and purples of his past creations. From afar, the colors and layering made the wave look like it was rippling, forever curling into itself.

He hefted the wave so the back was facing him, then welded on a thick wire string. Scrounging around, he found a long nail hidden underneath a leather apron. Grabbing his hammer from where it hung on the wall, he heaved the metal wave to the front of the house.

He leaned the wave against the wall, then hammered the nail into the right side of the doorway, eye level. Tucking the hammer into his pocket, he hooked the wave onto the nail, then admired his work. He sighed. Finally, he thought, he had created something. With the effort of having created one piece, he felt the burden of making artwork leave the hollow of his chest. He could do this, in his present life. He liked doing this.

Touching the colorful outlining, he sighed and walked back into the kitchen, washing his hands. He figured Harper would be home soon, and that she would be hungry from outthinking the fishermen. He was right.

He nearly cut off his fingers while filleting a cod when he heard Harper yell from outside.

“Ro! This is beautiful!” He smiled, throwing the fish guts into the trash. A thought flashed into his mind, of him and Harper sitting at the edge of the dock, leaned in, telling her how his art all began. He rolled his shoulders, couldn’t help the contented sigh exit his mouth. Since Willow had passed, never had his house felt so much like home.