Cracked

The story of a sculpture of a 12- years-old girl.

One Sunday afternoon my parents took me to the opening exhibit at the neighborhood’s new art center. It was not unusual for my brother, sister, and I to be carted around to these kinds of weekend events. But this one was special. My dad was the director of the community’s settlement house and he had been instrumental in establishing the center. My mom’s warm presence was a comforting asset to his work and, as soon as we walked in, they were surrounded by the many people they knew or had in someway helped. That left me to wander alone through the crowded room. I edged around its perimeter, occupying myself by staying out of sight, and ended in a corner, stiffly waiting for my parents to say we were leaving.

At last, my mom found me. “Come with me,” she said and took my arm. But instead of heading toward the door, she hauled me to where my dad stood with a bunch of people. They all turned toward me and beamed.

“Hi,” one man said.

My dad introduced him. “He says you have incredible cheekbones.”

My mom exclaimed, “he wants to sculpt you.”

The man said, “I could take some photos but it’d be better if we could have a few sessions together.”

“Of course.” My mom sounded as if this was the most logical thing in the world, but I had absolutely no clue what he meant.

“You’ll be famous, Patty,” my dad laughed as if this was something I should want.

“Really remarkable,” the man said and everyone around us again beamed at me.

Before we left, a date was set for a Saturday two weeks later.

I was 12-years-old and, to everyone in my fifth grade class, especially the boys, I was distinctly unremarkable. The only notice I got was when a boy tried to snap the back strap of my bra and discovered I was too flat-chested to wear one. By then, even my fellow flat-chested classmates wore a bra and this lack of one was added to their list of what made me weird. What 12-year-old boy would care about cheekbones? How did they increase my chances of being singled out at recess and talked to? Would they make someone fall in love with me enough to spend all his allowance on a star sapphire ring that would tell the world I was his?

I was certain this whole cheekbone sculpture thing would ruin my life all the way through high school.

On the ride home, I caught my dad looking back at me in the rearview mirror. “Aren’t you excited, Patty?”

“Who would have guessed you’d inspire an artist?” My mom added.

I stared out the window and prepared to die.

Two Saturdays later, my mom drove me to the man’s house. His wife greeted us. Somewhere in the rooms behind her children were laughing at the Saturday cartoons. The adults talked for awhile and then my mom left and the man escorted me to the attic which was filled with stacks of canvases and several small tables displaying unfinished sculptures. He directed me to a stool beside a window. A lump of faceless clay was on a nearby stand.

“This is going to be you,” the man said, gesturing to it. He seemed to think that I should find this funny. I gave him a wan smile to please him.

I wore my favorite jacket with a hood and a woolen scarf around my neck. The attic was hot and I could feel my face glistening with sweat.

“You want to take off your jacket?” He asked.

I did not.

He smiled, “okay, then. Just relax. This will be fun.”

He began to smooth layers of clay across the lump. He took quick glances at me and continued to add more clay until the featureless lump was kind of an oval balanced precariously on a stick. The whole time he tried to engage me by asking several calming questions. I shrugged my shoulders, gave terse one word responses. As a practiced father, he eventually gave up and accepted the challenge of working around my sullenness.

“Do you want to take a break?” he asked after awhile. “Something to eat? I think we have soda.”

I wanted this day to be over.

He smiled again and kept on going. I fixed my gaze on the back wall and fantasied that I was far away.

Hours that felt like days passed before my mom came to fetch me. He took some Polaroid photos so he could work without me. Surely they would release me from ever returning.

Yet the following Saturday I was brought back to the attic and for the rest of the month I remained stubbornly quiet, increasingly mad and embarrassed at the man’s concentration on my cheekbones.

Dad and mom and the girl on Christmas morning.

Then, suddenly, it was over: the bust was finished. My parents went to see it and came back astonished. That’s the word they used—astonished that their daughter with the cheekbones had been immortalized. The bust won many awards. It was shown in art exhibits across the city. Eventually my parents took it home and displayed it prominently on top of the stereo cabinet in the living room. My brother, the bright gem of our mom’s eye, was jealous at first of the attention I received but eventually became proud of the bust. Even my sister liked it. Visitors to the house stopped to admire it.

I looked at it only when my dad used it to hang his hat, the brim shadowing the cheekbones.

Life continued. I married, had children, my face aged from the 12-year-old girl to a woman in her forties. The flesh molded across my cheekbones softened.

My parents eventually moved to a smaller house. They were older now and when I came to visit my mom would ask me to do some housework. This day it was dusting around the living room. I stopped before the bust. There was a large crack around the top of the head, made even more unsightly by a crude attempt to glue it back in place.

“What happened to the bust?” I asked.

“It fell,” she replied, almost casually.

“How?”

She didn’t elaborate.

I asked my dad, “How did the bust fall?”

“Your mom accidently fell into the table,” he said and ignored my request for more information.

“What happened to the bust?” I asked my sister.

“Mom was drunk and fell on the table.”

The bust remained prominently displayed. Everyone who saw it acted as if they didn’t see the damage done.

My dad died first and then my mom and we were left with a house to pick apart. We packed up the china, distributed pots and pans, decided what to do with the books and the papers, and our dad’s favorite chair. We divvied up the few pieces of good art. The bust, of course, would go to me.

I couldn’t tell my brother and sister that I didn’t want it. I knew they would be shocked. How could they know that it was an excruciating reminder of an awkward 12-year-old-girl who believed that her worth was no more than bones. How could they not see it had also become a devastating reminder of our family’s unresolved tragedy.

I placed the bust in my car and drove it home. For a long time it remained on top of a radiator in a dark corner of the dining room. Sometimes it peeked out from behind plants. Occasionally I dressed her in fancy hats that obscured the crack. At Christmas, she often wore one of those flashing Rudolph noses or a Santa hat. For a while I balanced on top of her head the fake diamond tiara I gave to my late aunt for her birthday. Nothing, though, could mask the girl’s troubles.

It’s many years now and I have mostly learned to live with her disquiet. Sometimes, I think I might donate her to a thrift store. I could even throw her away. The best thing would be to pack her away, letting my children deal with the weight of her after I’m gone. But I can’t. These days the girl sits on a window sill. She’s looking out into the world, wondering what will happen to her.

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