Shard

She knelt beside the shattered pots, barely noticing the blood trickling down her neck. Broken—all of them—lying on the scuffed linoleum, right there with her decision to let him be. He’d done it. He’d gone and broken his word.

Patience thought of her mother. Beautiful. Only word to describe her. Perfect to anyone but her own child. Slap here. Curse there. Anger everywhere. But what a show she put on for the neighbors. Nobody could compete with Mama for acting abilities. Star performer she’d been all her life, even to the man she’d married and later murdered. Oh, she didn’t hold the gun to his head, but she was certainly present in his thoughts as he pulled the trigger. Like mother like daughter.

They’d named her Patience because it was the virtue neither possessed but both wanted for the other. So why not burden a child with unreal expectations before she even took a breath? They were like that, Mama and Papa. Wanting what they’d never have, what they were never willing to give.

Patience learned early the importance of plotting. A good ploy was not to be outdone. Take time to get it right because there was no second chance with vengeance. The scar shaped like the old iron on Patience’s thigh was testament enough to that.

So Patience would wait and plan.
——
All was clean when he returned next morning. Who knew what hovel he’d slept in and with who. Didn’t matter.

Skin was puffy round the X he’d carved in Patience’s left temple. Not deep enough to kill, but enough to brand her for life. His. His mark. Like them old cowboys used to sign, he’d said. X for a name. X for land. X for property. Patience was property, and she wasn’t to forget it.

Breakfast was cold by the time he’d washed up. Threw it to the dog and demanded another. Of course Patience complied, because she was the epitome of her name. That’s why he wanted her, after all. Patient, submissive. Perfect woman.

He never would realize how perfect she was for him.
——
My, he was dashing the day they met. Leaning against his truck, smoking one of them ever-present cigarettes. She hated the things, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stand it for a pretty face. Him blond, tan, good-looking. Her short, dark, awkward. Mama said she’d never amount to much, but boy, when he looked at her that day, she felt like somethin’.

Why she believed all them lies, she’d never know. Women did stupid things in lust.
——
She’d always wanted a baby, a chance to do right by some small creature. That baby would be raised up proper, loving mother and all.

It wasn’t like Patience would get a chance with another man. At thirty-two, she’d been lucky to get a whistle from the town drunk. So when a luscious stranger walked into town—no past, no future—she took what she could. Patience weren’t no fool. She knew she was ugly, but that didn’t matter to him. He just wanted a warm body to keep him fed and clothed, someone to dominate. She could deal with the rest, so long as he gave her a baby.

Baby came eventually. Three months early after he punched her in the gut during a drunken fight. Couldn’t do nothin’, those doctors said. Dead before they reached the hospital. They let her hold that baby. Soft but cold all over. Tiny fingers and toes, each with its own nail. Beautiful. Turns out ugly mamas can have pretty babies.

Little thing didn’t even mind her crying all over him. Just laid there, still as could be. Perfect child. Poor thing couldn’t even take revenge. Patience would have to do it for him.
——
Patience made money only way she knew how—throwing pots. Not at people, as the fool man did, but with a wheel. Same way her mama taught her. Only good thing she got from mama. Couldn’t even get her looks, but she certainly got the talent with clay.

Sold them pots down off the highway in a little stand for them rich tourists. They always wanted a piece of the land. Let ’em have it, for all she cared. She had more important things to deal with.
——
Clean up this sty, he’d say. You’re a filthy pig. Who knows why I bother with you. Each punctuated with a slap.

He bothered because no one else would have him. Not for long, and certainly not for free. Soon no one would have to bother with him at all.

Days passed. The X became infected, but there was no money for the doctor since he’d destroyed all the pots she’d made to sell that week. No money for food, neither, but that wasn’t new. She’d lived through hunger. Besides, it kept her figure.

There was always enough for beer, though. Beer and cigarettes. Patience didn’t partake, but that only meant her money went to one man’s portion instead of two. A man could live on those things. At least he could.

Patience, now. She lived on hope. What hope did she have? None, really, but the hope of having hope. That had to be enough.
——
Potter’s clay stuck to her hands, coating the undersides of fingernails. She liked to scratch designs out with those nails, think of raking them through his eyes—and other unmentionables. Those rich people liked her style of pottery. Violent. Dark. Carnal. They liked anything that made them feel superior. Buy a scratched-up pot from a poor woman. Tell the story to friends. Changed a woman’s life with a measly twenty bucks.

Patience was worth more than that. But who would buy madness in the form of a pot for more than fifty dollars? Madness comes cheap, it does.

Madness. Genius. Same thing. The starving artist in his loft was genius, but the impoverished potter in her trailer was mad.

Now she was mad, but not how they thought. Patience, though, she could wait like no man. She would bide her time. Then they would all feel the force of her madness.
——
Mixing clay in her trough soothed her nerves. He was gone. Called his mama and told her he was leaving the crazy witch. Packed up his truck.

Never got far. Police came, said they’d found the rusted hunk of metal off the highway, broken down. No phone? No message? Dehydration, maybe, or rattlesnake. Coulda been anything. No body, though, so they’d search.

Days. Weeks. Months. None heard from that man. That was all he’d ever be to her. Him. Didn’t deserve a name. Not for all he’d done.

Patience was a free woman now, but she didn’t want freedom if it meant sympathy from the neighbors. He was cruel. They knew it as well as her, but they were all cruel here. Drunk men. Submissive women. That’s the way things were done.

Not for Patience.

Cards came. They went in the trash. Flowers showed up on the porch. They wilted. Patience had no need for pity when she felt none herself. She could survive on her own without a man. She’d done it before, would do it again.
——
The pots were exquisite. Never had such a fancy word described anything about her, but them folks with money said it ’bout them new pots she’d made. Since he’d disappeared, her work had far outshined everything else along that stretch of old dusty road.

Red, they were. How could she get such a beautiful color on a pot? The marks, so violent. Looked gruesome, almost. But they bought them. Gave them as gifts. Told their friends about the genius potter off the highway. She made her money. Blood money, it was too.

Dead men’s lips tell no tales, but her pots did. Red stories and brown ones. And, mixed with the right clay, very dark and black ones. But that’s what people wanted, so it’s what Patience gave ’em.

Nothing, however, was sweeter than seeing those bits of him leaving the stand each day as they traveled to the homes of the wealthy, tainting their perfect worlds with violence.