Part 22 (2/2)

”Yeah, well, that would be something of an understatement. Is she overreacting a little? Maybe. But she's really upset, and I can see her point. She wanted to be the one to say something, you know? She wanted to choose the time.”

”I didn't think clearly,” I said, understanding in that moment how deeply Blake's allegiances had s.h.i.+fted. He had his own family now. ”Would it help if I called her?”

Blake shrugged. ”Maybe. She's really mad at me. She didn't know I'd told you, Lucy. She didn't know that anyone else knew, and when she found out-well, you can imagine how she felt.”

My bag with all the letters was hanging from my arm, and though I'd meant to share everything I'd learned with Blake, it suddenly seemed trivial compared to what was unfolding between us.

”I feel terrible. What can I do?”

He looked past me, over the water, and sighed. ”Nothing, at this point. I mean, it would be good if you talked to Avery.”

”I will.”

”Okay.” He managed a small smile. ”Just don't expect her to name the baby after you.”

”Okay on that, too.”

We were quiet for a moment, the boat moving slightly on the gentle waves.

”Yos.h.i.+'s coming tomorrow,” I said.

”Hey, I'm glad to hear that. You guys are good?”

”I hope so,” I said.

He nodded, no doubt remembering Keegan and me traveling out on the lake the night before. ”I was beginning to wonder.”

”Keegan and I were never meant to be.”

”You okay with that?”

”I'm okay. Sad a little. I mean, Keegan is great in a lot of ways. I just got disoriented for a while, so far away from home. So close to all the lost past.”

Blake smiled. ”Yeah, I get that. Well, look-we're doing a July Fourth party on Tuesday,” he said, gesturing to the half-stained railing. ”Here on the boat. That's what I'm doing, getting ready. I'm inviting everyone, Art, Joey and Zoe, Austen, Mom, a few friends, some people from the restaurant, too. Mom promised not to tell anyone else about the baby, and we're going to formally announce it then. The baby and the wedding, by the way. I'm not telling when we're getting married.” He smiled. ”You'll have to wait like everyone else. You're invited, by the way.”

”Well, thank you. And congratulations.” I hugged him, the bag catching between us as he put his arm briefly around my shoulders.

Then I left, walking down the dock and through the village to the Impala, driving up the lake road until the house came into view. The sun was setting by then, and light flashed off the cupola windows in spectacular shades of gold and fuchsia and orange. I parked on the lawn and walked straight to the sh.o.r.e, shedding my shoes as I went, and dived off the end of the dock into the cold clear water of the lake.

Chapter 16.

YOs.h.i.+'S FLIGHT WAS DUE TO ARRIVE EARLY, SO I WAS UP AT dawn, rough clouds scattering to the east and muting the sunrise, the sky flaring red and gold, as if on fire. My mother had been spending a lot of time upstairs, going through the closets and packing up my father's things. Quietly, without saying anything about it, she had started sleeping there again. Her door was ajar, her breathing soft and even, so I moved quietly, down the stairs, the kitchen tiles cold on my bare feet as I made toast and tea.

Breakfast over, I got into the Impala and took the highway. There was little traffic so I got to the airport with an hour to spare, taking a seat in one of the black Naugahyde-and-metal chairs to wait. At this early hour the regional airport was almost empty. I'd brought my computer to catch up on e-mail. My account was so full it almost shut down, so I spent the first few minutes deleting spam and chain messages. Neil and Julie had sent photos from their recent snorkeling trip, so the screen was suddenly full of a tropical paradise, with Yos.h.i.+ sitting on the white sand beach, leaning back on his elbows and smiling, his legs crossed at the ankles and his jet-black hair cut very short, looking so relaxed it was hard to believe he'd just quit a job and didn't have another.

I found myself smiling back. I thought of the rain, and I remembered how happy we had been.

While I was working through the inbox, a message popped up from Oliver, of all people, labeled ”point of interest.” I clicked it open, thinking he'd probably just put me on a mailing list for the Westrum House, but in fact it was a real message from Oliver himself.

Dear Lucy,First, allow me to apologize for being so terse with you during the visit you and your mother made to the Westrum House. I hope you can understand my concerns about thoroughly investigating any claims regarding Frank Westrum. One cannot be too careful, I find, in this high-tech era. I would not wish for any misinformation to go viral, as they say. Yet I am aware of my own tendency to be a bit overprotective of his legacy, and a recent conversation I had with your Reverend Suzi helped me reach the conclusion that perhaps I had been too abrupt, even rude, when we last met.So let me apologize. And let me also inform you of a recent discovery I made while going through the studio more thoroughly. I found a piece of paper, shoved in the back of the drawer marked 1938, with a penciled note. It said only this: Iris Jarrett Wyndham Stone. I would not have noted this before, but now of course I a.s.sume she is your Iris. I send this news with my best wishes to you and to your family.

Iris Jarrett Wyndham Stone. The note from Oliver was so generous, so unexpected. I read her married name over and over again, and whispered it out loud. I remembered finding her baptismal certificate and that the name Wyndham had meant nothing to me then. Now the sad and complicated history radiated from every letter. I did a quick Internet search but came back with nothing except Wyndham Stone Turf near Batavia and Stone Jar Antiques in Oswego. If Iris was alive, and she could be, she could be anywhere at all.

When I'd worked my way halfway down the screen, I found a message from Serling University, which housed the Vivian Branch archives in its history collection, and had been working all this time on my request. I'd forgotten all about this. I opened it to find a note from the archivist saying she had come across two letters of interest, both written by Frank Westrum to Vivian Branch and her sister Cornelia. She had scanned the doc.u.ments into PDF files and these were attached. I clicked on the first.

9 September 1938 My dearest Vivian and Cornelia, I write to let you know the windows are complete.

Last evening I left Rose resting in the parlor of the sanatorium, feeling better. I hope so, at least. I stood outside for a very long time in the dusk. The light was on, I saw her shadow move behind the curtains. She was able to see all the windows but the final one before her health deteriorated, but I hope she will rally enough to come home before I must s.h.i.+p them off to you. They have meant so much to her. I would like her to see them all together, just once. People pa.s.sed me on the street, talking, and some glanced at me lingering at the bottom of the steps, but I stayed until she went upstairs to her room and put the lamp out and slept. I hope she slept. Increasingly, she coughs so much that it is hard for her to rest. This is such a cruel disease, and I am so helpless in the face of it. I walked for a long time by the river. It was dawn before I turned home and fell into a restless sleep myself.

There is no need for me to go on; I know my suffering will only bring you grief. But I write to let you know that all the windows are done. I believe they are beautiful. They hang against the windows in my studio, and I think you would be pleased to see them, all the women gathered, their feet resting gently on the border Rose designed. She took it, as you may know, from an image she saw as a child, a pattern she sketched and remembered for its beauty. Though I followed your instructions about the women you wished to depict, I consulted Rose about the images and design and the choice of colors, as I'm sure you wished me to do. Truly, we were partners in this creation, and so I think of these as being her windows in some true sense, born of your generosity and vision, yes, and of my work, true, but born also of my conversations with Rose, who is a sister to you in your concerns. You will understand that I made these windows with her in mind, thought of her with every piece of gla.s.s I cut, and I put them all together as if I could a.s.semble our lives in such a beautiful and accurate way. Which of course, I cannot.

In any case, they are finished and await your inspection.

Regards, Frank28 September 1938 My Dear Vivian and Cornelia, May this letter find you well in The Lake of Dreams. I was so pleased to have you visit, and to hear from you so quickly. It is joyous to me that you like the windows. I know that the two of you and Rose have dreamed of such a chapel for decades, and your generosity in funding this project will inspire generations, I feel sure. I find the windows have a life of their own, a resonating beauty apart from anything we did to create them, and I shall be sorry when they do not stand in my studio any longer.

But pack them up, I have. The s.h.i.+pping company will collect them tomorrow, and they will be delivered to you no later than two weeks from now.

Also the last funds have arrived, and I thank you. Do let me know when the installation will be. I cannot wait to see your chapel.

Rose is a little better now. She did come here one afternoon and stood for a long time amid the windows. They say she may be able to return home next week, so we hope.

Regards, Frank I read these letters several times, exhilarated at this direct, clear link between Frank Westrum and Rose. And because I felt magnanimous and thankful to Oliver for sharing what he'd found, I forwarded the notes to him, without letting myself consider it too fully. By the time I looked up, the level of activity had risen, people streaming in and scattering throughout the terminal. Yos.h.i.+'s flight had landed. I closed the computer and stood up to wait, still thinking of Frank's notes, the poignant image of him standing outside the sanatorium, watching her silhouette through the curtains, beyond the layers of gla.s.s. Thinking of them working together, Rose drawing with the same sharp lines that comprised her handwriting, sketching the designs Frank would translate into gla.s.s, a beautiful symbiosis. His notes were undercut with such sadness, and I wondered what Rose had been suffering from, what cruel disease he meant. Tuberculosis, I guessed, and it made sense that she might have contracted this from the work she'd done with Vivian. Or perhaps her bout with influenza had left her weakened, or damaged her lungs in some way.

People, brisk or languorous or weary, began to stream down the escalator. Yos.h.i.+ was among the last, looking a little dazed, a bag slung over his shoulder. He was wearing cargo shorts and a blue T-s.h.i.+rt and his hair was short. He was tan and so good-looking that I felt stilled for a moment as I watched him riding down the escalator, considering all that had happened in this brief time, how close I had come, in my pursuit of the past, to canceling this moment altogether. And perhaps Yos.h.i.+ had considered ending things between us, too; I still didn't know if this was the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end. I felt suddenly shy. When he saw me he smiled, held up one hand to wave. I wove through the current of other pa.s.sengers and put my arm around him, kissed him quickly.

”You're here,” I said.

”I made it,” he agreed.

We got his bag and walked out of the terminal, talking too quickly about the most mundane things: his trip, the weather, the history of my father's golden car. I drove out of the city and back over the familiar roads, pointing out landmarks; Yos.h.i.+ remarked on the wideness of the car seats and the expansive countryside, fields and farms in every direction. The dark green highway signs for one town after another flashed by: Watkins Glen, Corning, Elmira. I told Yos.h.i.+ about the George East-man House, which housed the International Museum of Photography and Film, and about Mark Twain, who'd lived in Elmira, his octagonal study with its fireplace and many windows, like a freestanding cupola, now on the campus of Elmira College.

”What do you think?” I asked when we got close to the exit for The Lake of Dreams. ”Are you tired? I could take you to the house and you could sleep. Or we could stop and walk around the village for a while.”

”I'm tired, but I know I won't sleep,” Yos.h.i.+ said. ”Show me around. I'll just walk until I can't anymore.”

So I parked. We strolled through the village and stopped at the bank, which was open on Sat.u.r.day mornings. My mother looked up from the papers on her desk and stood, smiling, to shake Yos.h.i.+'s hand. She liked him right away, I could tell by the way she lingered in the conversation. She promised to be home early from work. Then we got ice-cream cones and sat in the park, watching sailboats skim across the lake, and Yos.h.i.+ told me more about his trip to the island, pulling photos up on his camera, carefully skirting the issue of work, of the fact that we were both as adrift in the world as those boats were on the water. Skirting, too, the gaps that had opened up between us in these past two weeks. Yos.h.i.+ lay back on the gra.s.s and dozed a little, and I walked along the seawall. The house Rose had first lived in was across the street, a narrow Victorian with lacy trim. Iris had been born in that house; there was the garden where she'd made her dolls of hollyhocks. I glanced at Yos.h.i.+, dozing in the sun with his arms clasped behind his head, so familiar, and yet containing a universe of history and perceptions that I could never know.

When Yos.h.i.+ woke up, we walked down to the pier, but though the Fearful Symmetry Fearful Symmetry was tethered and bobbing on the water, neither Blake nor Avery were there, and so we walked on. I pointed out Dream Master rising from the edge of the outlet, imposing. For me it had always been a symbol of my family history, and even though its cracked cornices and need of tuckpointing were clearly visible, seeing things through Yos.h.i.+'s eyes did what even my years away had not been able to accomplish: it was a building, nothing more. was tethered and bobbing on the water, neither Blake nor Avery were there, and so we walked on. I pointed out Dream Master rising from the edge of the outlet, imposing. For me it had always been a symbol of my family history, and even though its cracked cornices and need of tuckpointing were clearly visible, seeing things through Yos.h.i.+'s eyes did what even my years away had not been able to accomplish: it was a building, nothing more.

”Your grandfather built it?” he asked.

”Great-grandfather. He was Rose's brother. They came to this country together.”

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