The Glass Between Me and the Unfinished

I was fourteen when the house on Cinnamon Street taught me that some silences are heavier than others. We’d moved there the previous winter, a sprawling ranch-style place with floor-to-ceiling windows that bled sunlight into every room. My mother called it a blessing for the Brisbane heat; I called it a fishbowl. But the light was warm, and the walls were new, and I had more pressing concerns than architecture—like the unfinished sculpture in the garage that my father had started before he left.

It was a life-size figure of a woman, half-formed from clay and wire. He’d called it ‘Athena,’ but the face was never shaped, just a smooth oval waiting for features. I used to run my fingers over that blank face, wondering what she would have become. The garage door was always left ajar, so the sun crept in and caught the dust motes, making the whole space feel sacred. I spent hours there, whispering to her, apologizing for my father’s abandonment. I never expected her to answer.

The first time I saw her was in the reflection of the sliding glass door that faced the kitchen. I’d come in from the garage, sweat on my neck, and grabbed a jug of tap water from the fridge. As I tilted my head back, I caught a shimmer in the glass—a silhouette, not mine. I spun, but the space behind me was empty. I laughed at my own imagination, blamed the heat. But that night, I dreamed of a woman standing in the garage, her face still blank, her hand reaching out to me.

Over the following weeks, I began to hear things. Not voices—more like faint scraping, as if clay were being dragged across concrete. The neighbor’s dog, a wiry terrier named Banjo, started barking at the garage door whenever I approached. My mother thought it was a rat. I didn’t correct her. But I felt watched, a prickle at the nape of my neck that grew sharper with each passing day.

One evening, I returned from a bike ride to find the garage door fully open. The figure was gone from her stand. My heart pounded as I stepped inside, the space darker than it should have been at six PM. Then I saw her—the woman from my dreams, but now with a face. It was my face, twisted into a mask of agony. She stood before me, her clay skin cracked, her eyes hollow, and she raised a hand to point at my chest. When she spoke, her voice was like dry earth crumbling: ‘You left me unfinished.’

I stumbled backward, tripping over a garden hose, and landed on my back. She advanced, each step leaving a grey dust print on the concrete. ‘I was meant to be whole,’ she said, ‘but he made me only to leave me.’ I tried to scream, but my throat closed. Then she knelt beside me, her hand hovering over my heart. ‘Finish me,’ she whispered, ‘or I will make you my unfinished.’

I don’t remember how I got to my feet, but I ran inside, slamming the garage door behind me. My mother found me huddled in the kitchen pantry, shaking. She assumed it was a panic attack; I let her believe that. But that night, I crept back to the garage with a chisel and a ball of fresh clay. I shaped a face—not my father’s vision, but one I invented: a serene smile, kind eyes, a hint of laughter. I worked until dawn, and when I placed the final touch, the figure seemed to sigh, the tension leaving her shoulders.

The next morning, I went to check, but the sculpture was gone. Only a neat pile of grey dust remained, as if she had returned to the earth that birthed her. I never saw the woman again. But sometimes, when I pass a reflective surface, I catch a glimpse of a smiling face, watching me, grateful. And I wonder if she still lingers, not as a ghost but as an echo of what could have been. The glass between us is a mirror, and I’ve learned to be careful with what I leave unfinished.