Is that so?

You search your face daily for the signs. Glassy eyes? Check. Acne? No more than usual. Double chin, from weight gain? Maybe. Maybe a little. Hair loss? Not yet, but you know from the other drug, the one that ate half your hair, that the hair loss takes time.

You look away from the mirror at that point, ashamed of your own vanity. If the medicine works, it works.

It is so.

*****

You read a story somewhere about a man. Every day, you find yourself thinking about this story.

“You’re a genius!” they told him, handing him gifts, showering him with accolades.

“Is that so?” he said.

The next day, they told him, “You’re a fool!”

“Is that so?” he said. He gave back the gifts.

A girl in the village became pregnant.

“You’re the father!” they accused him.

“Is that so?” he said, accepting a thrashing from her family.

When the baby was born, they handed the baby to him.

“This baby is yours!” they said.

“Is that so?” he said, taking the baby into his arms, caring for it for a year.

“The baby is not yours, we’re sorry,” they said.

“Is that so?” he said, handing the baby back to them.

Is that so? Is that so? Is that so.

*****

You wonder what They think. You know of at least one who does not understand, one who thinks you are shirking your responsibilities by pretending to be unwell.

Is that so?

And then there is that one, who thinks…well, it is not good, what that one thinks of you. That one is angry.

There is also that one, who thinks you will always be worse off than the others.

There is that one, who chooses not to hear.

There is that one, that one, that one, that one. So many ones.

Is that so?

You are learning there is nothing you can do about what others think.

Does it hurt, what they think?

Yes, still. Of course.

You have not achieved that level of serenity, yet.

*****

There is a substance that was created the same year your first daughter was born, in 2001. The substance, like your daughter, is precious. It is called PMC: precious metal clay.

It is close to miraculous. You work with flesh-colored clay, which is a mix of precious metal and organic binder material. You dry it, then put it in the kiln. In the kiln, the organic binder material burns away. All that is left behind is pure metal. It should not be possible, and yet, it is.

During the past year—a year so shocking and appalling in its pain that you marvel that you are still here—you have learned about PMC. You have seen PMC jewelry, in silver and gold.

You have never in your life worked with metal, unless you count aluminum foil.

Several months ago, you picked up a phone—and you hate the phone—and you enrolled in an all-day workshop, an Intro to Jewelry-Making with PMC.

Is that so?

*****

You did not expect your brain and your heart would be this badly bruised by the time the workshop rolled around. No.

You discuss this with your mother. You still cannot drive, because of the medicine that makes you feel drunk, so she agrees to drive you the hour’s distance to the workshop. Because it means that much to you. To do something that moves you, something that compels you, something a normal soul might do on a weekend.

As you trot down the stairs to the metalsmithing room, you have a moment—a good one—that reminds you of happy days spent in various college fine-arts buildings.

When the instructor encourages everyone to introduce themselves and say why they have come, you say that you had been a Studio Art major in college, and that your ceramics professor told you that you weren’t centered enough to work in 3D. You tell them that you are there in PMC class to prove her wrong.

They laugh, and there is a smattering of applause.

Is that so?

*****

Your hands shake embarrassingly as you work. The damn medicine. You hope your tablemates do not notice. Your eyes are bloodshot. It is hard to focus. But you are determined to learn as much as you can about this strange material.

Ten a.m. to 5:15 p.m, with just a half hour for lunch. Somehow, you make it through the day.

By the end of the class, you have created a filigree heart pendant for your daughter (it seems right, that your firstborn should have the first thing you created in precious metal), two textured silver tube beads, one ridiculous owl-faced ring with two gems as eyes, and one lovely geranium leaf pendant, created from the impression of an actual geranium leaf.

When the creations come out of the kiln, the students (including you) are afraid to touch them. The pieces are white, porcelain-looking. No one believes these fragile things are metal now.

The instructor encourages everyone to scrub their pieces with Dawn liquid detergent and a brass jeweler’s brush. Daintily, you and everyone take a brass brush and begin to swipe, swipe, stroke.

Grown men gasp, swoon, as the silver begins to emerge and the white powdery exterior fades away.

It is not every day that one gets to witness magic.

How is it possible that these pieces could be so fragile before the kiln firing, and then become sturdy, bright, beautiful metal?

*****

When your mother comes for you, you give her the geranium leaf. You strung it on a black satin cord. You put it around her neck.

You have made something beautiful, something solid, something true and good, from something fragile.

Is that so?

Yes.

That is so. Today, that is so.