The Potter's Daughter - A chapter each week - Complete Novel Available on Amazon

Chapter 4

After Will finished the urn he stood up from the kick wheel, turned toward the lake, and reached inside of the pocket of his flannel shirt for a Camel cigarette.  Camel shorts without the filters had been his cigarettes of choice for many years, yet after Emily died twenty years ago, he switched to the light filters and then only smoked those sparsely in the studio or at the Stone Tavern.  Will put the cigarette in his mouth then reached into his pants pocket for his Zippo without removing his gaze from the frozen lake.

There were three snowmobiles crossing the lake from Peters Beach, Will was not focusing on them.

Will’s mind was drifting from the completion of the urn to the inevitable thought that he was capable of completing a piece at all.  How effortless the wheel had been for him, as throwing the clay had been countless times before.  Surely the tremors were no reason for everyone to be so concerned, he was after all as able bodied as ever.

Just under six feet tall, Will was as solid at sixty-seven as he had been at forty or twenty.  He was moderately stocky and shared the crystal blue eyes and the sandy brown hair of every Bellen man before him.  Grey was the color of his hair now, yet all there, and a color that blended well with his studio.  Will was quite proud of that.  A little grey did not debilitate him.

Will thought Abby was audacious.  His daughter was always welcome to her childhood home.  Taking time away from her job was a bit much though.  If Abby had her own issues to work out, he would support her just as long as she did not project them on him.  Abby having an early mid-life crisis was not his fault.  Abby did not have to meddle in his life for distraction from her own.  Meddlesome is what they all were.  Little Caroline calling Abby in the city burned him a bit too.  Abby should be taking care of her life and he should be taking care of his.

Will threw down his half smoked camel and crushed the tobacco on the dusty cement floor, his eyes still fixed across the lake.  Shrugging off thoughts of Abby and Caroline, he turned to one of the worktables in the center of the room.  Under the worktable were a set of cabinets that held dyes, sponges, and water bottles.  Along side of the supplies were two bottles of red wine and some paper cups.  Will pulled a half bottle of wine out of the cabinet along with a paper cup.  He opened the wine and filled the cup.

Alone in his studio Will began to sip from the paper cup.

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