The Henry Chronicles

Every year when I decorate for the holidays, I stop to ponder a ceramic angel that I made in fourth grade. This year was no exception. Lots of my ornaments have memories associated with them: the yarn angel that my mother bought to represent my sister, Midge, who died before I was born; the Japanese silk thread ball that reminded me of our brief sojourn in Hawaii; the little German ornaments that my mother collected. The meaning of each is unambiguous. Only the little blonde ceramic angel has confounded me.

When I was nine or ten, my mother decided to take up a new hobby. We had recently moved to a suburb of Everett, Washington. Compared to our neighborhood in Seattle, a few miles from the University of Washington and an easy drive to the Opera House and downtown, suburban Eastmont didn’t have a lot to offer. For me, there was the attraction of “the gully” (an undeveloped gulch), a hilltop school ground that was perfect for kite flying, and quiet roads where I could safely ride my Stingray bike.

My Mom decided to try making ceramics, and she let me go with her. On a rural road, a small cottage with faded paint had been converted into a studio. Inside, in what might have been the living room, were shelves of casting molds. On the right side of the room was a counter where patrons poured tan or white clay slip into molds, forming a thin layer before being poured, leaving behind damp greenware. In the center were tables where crafters prepared their creations for firing, and once their pieces were hardened by the kiln, painted on details or covered them with an viscous blue liquid that would magically transform into a glistening clear polish. Animals and gnomes were frequent subjects, as were useful household items such as ashtrays. One of my first projects was a large ashtray with raised astrological symbols finished with a mottled brown and black glaze, which my mother proudly displayed.

If we were really lucky, Mom and I would arrive at the ceramics studio on a day when a new mold had just been placed on the shelves. New molds were sparkling white, but more importantly, unworn from constant use. The greenware from these molds, when ejected without mishap, had sharp, clean edges and smooth, unmarred curves.

Starting a new piece always made me hold my breath. At each step, I anticipated the problems that had spoiled my efforts so many times before. Would I drain the excess slip too soon, leaving the piece too fragile to maintain its shape? Would I fumble as I freed the greenware and dent it? Would I nick it when I scraped away the nearly-invisible seam where the two halves of the mold joined, or paint a line too thick, or glaze it unevenly?

In late summer, people had started in on Christmas decorations. I had my eye on a kneeling angel mold. Her feathered wings extended above her head, her long dress puddled gracefully around her legs, and her thick, wavy hair flowed down her back. Her hands were clasped in prayer below her smooth, serene face. I cast two, planning to make one a brunette, like me, and the other, a delicate blonde. The brunette was a disappointment. The dark brown underglaze contrasted too sharply with her porcelain skin. Rather than the brown mane I imagined, her hair looked like what it was: brown paint.

But the blonde was the angel of my dreams. I painted her dress blue, put a touch of color on her lips and carefully added fine blonde eyebrows to match her hair. When she emerged from the kiln, the yellow glaze had hints of darker hue, perhaps a residual from the brown paint I had used on her sister. She was pale, delicate and beautiful.

I placed the two angels on the bookcase on my room. Every time I looked at the blonde angel, I felt proud. Then school started up, and I forgot about her.

About that time, I had become friends with a girl across the street. Occasionally, we played at my house, but most of the time, we played dolls in her bedroom. Each day, however, we would have to interrupt while Dawn completed her chores. My primary chores were making my bed, cleaning my cat’s litter box and setting the table. Dawn was responsible for dusting, cleaning the glass coffee table with a foaming spray, and vacuuming. I never saw much of Dawn’s mother. When she was around, she didn’t greet me warmly as my mother welcomed my friends. I had the feeling I was underfoot.

One day, I noticed that the blonde angel was gone. I hadn’t thought about her in a while and I didn’t know how long she’d been missing. I looked all over my room, then around the living room and even the recreation room downstairs. The brown-haired angel was in her place but not her twin.

About two weeks later, Dawn and I were playing in her room. On her little dressing table was the blonde angel. I blurted out, “That’s my angel!” Dawn said that it wasn’t, that she had purchased it for her mother for Christmas. Our discussion turned into an argument, with me insisting that it had to be my angel. See how the paint on her eyebrows has a touch of brown? I painted that! Dawn held her ground. Finally, I played my trump card.

“My initials are carved in the bottom! I always carve my initials on the bottom of my pieces!”

Dawn turned the angel over. “It’s not yours,” she said. “See? It has felt on the bottom!”

An uneven green felt square was indeed on the bottom. Around it, frosted white nail polish glistened. It seemed obvious to me that Dawn had covered up my initials by using her mother’s nail polish to afix it to the base.

I knew it was mine, but she looked me squarely in the eyes and lied about it.

I wrote her a note. I told her that if it was so important to her to give the angel to her mother, she could have it. I was giving it to her. I didn’t want to lose her friendship over it.

After a few days, Dawn rang the doorbell. In her hand was the angel. She told me that she loved it so much she wanted to have it. So she had stolen and lied.

I’ve thought about Dawn every time I’ve put the angel on display. It’s always seemed like an important story to me but one without an ending. What did it mean?

Yesterday morning, my church pastor, Rev. Mary Hudak, told a story about her first grade classmate, Tina, who had stolen her pencil. When Mary told the teacher on Tina, Mary’s favorite teacher, Miss Haney, told Mary she knew. But Mary, she said, had two pencils, and Tina didn’t have any. Tina didn’t have lots of things that other children had. Miss Haney knew that Mary would not make fun of Tina for not having what the other kids had.

“I learned something about myself that day,” Rev. Mary said. She learned that her teacher knew Mary’s heart was big enough to sacrifice for her classmate. She learned something about herself.

My story had a different moral, but an important one.

It was about mothers. I couldn’t understand how Dawn wanted her mother’s love and approval so much that she would steal something her friend had made and loved.

My mother loved me enough to display what must have been the world’s ugliest ashtray. I didn’t have to do anything to prove my love for her. I was secure in her love, and she in mine.

I went to church expecting to hear a parable from Bible times. I came away understanding my own.