The glassblowing room was hot, despite the high windows open all along the canal and the huge fans moving constantly. Courtney, the assistant, glanced up and nodded, turning her attention almost immediately back to the shape emerging from her blowpipe, the swelling glass a deep iridescent green, like a mallard’s neck. I paused for a moment, watching her fluid, expert motions, the glass that shifted and grew as if alive, before I crossed the room and went upstairs.
Keegan was sitting on a beanbag chair, his long legs extended and crossed at the ankles. Max was sitting next to him, caught in the curve of his father’s arm, while Keegan read out loud. It wasn’t a board book, or even an early reader, but rather a collection of Greek myths. They were reading the story of Demeter and Persephone, the girl’s sudden vanishing and the mother’s desperate search, the way she’d stopped the world from growing until someone told her what had happened to her daughter. When Persephone returned, the pomegranate seed was already on her tongue; the moment she bit it she was destined to spend half the year in darkness. It seemed a little complex for a boy as young as Max, but he was riveted. Keegan glanced up and smiled as I came in, without interrupting the story. I leaned against one of the steel supporting beams and listened to his voice, so animated and soothing. Max listened, too, avidly attentive, and now and then he glanced up at Keegan with a satisfied and adoring expression.
When the story was done, Keegan closed the book and stood up, stretching.
“Read another one, Dad,” Max said. “I didn’t get enough stories.”
Keegan laughed. “Not enough stories? You
never
have enough stories, Max. I could read to you all day and all night and you’d still want more.”
Max laughed and shouted, “More!”
“How about you watch cartoons for fifteen minutes while I talk to Lucy?”
Max cast a level and assessing gaze at me before he reached for the remote. Keegan came over and kissed me on the cheek, a friendly kiss, nothing more, but one that took me back in time anyway. I felt the warm press of his lips, smelled his familiar scents of soap and sweat and now of fire.
“Nice sweatshirt,” he said.
“Thanks. I found it at the bottom of a drawer. We missed you at the solstice party,” I added, remembering how the night had been woven with the glittering possibility that he might come. Did I sound too disappointed? I touched my cheek where he had kissed me.
“Your mother was just being nice,” he said. “Besides, it got busy here at the end of the day. A special order, place settings for a bridal shower.”
“She likes you,” I said. “She wasn’t just being nice. It was a good party.”
“I’m sure it was. Well, maybe next year. Need some more coffee?” he asked, nodding at my cup as he walked toward the kitchen.
“Love some.” I followed him to the counter—he moved so fluidly, with the same athletic grace he had while working the glass—and sat down, pulled the plastic lid off the cup so he could fill it. “My mother said you left a message?”
“I did, actually. Good news. I got permission to take you to the chapel. Not until Wednesday, unfortunately, but they’ll have the boards off the rest of the windows by then. I’m eager to see what they’ve got there, and I thought you would be, too.”
“That’s fantastic. I didn’t get to tell you the details, but I found out who made the windows, and I think I found the connection with my family, too. I have this ancestor I’ve never heard of before. Her name is Rose. She had a daughter, too, born in 1911. And then she seems to have disappeared. They both did. Though I think I found some clues,” I added, remembering the woman with her arms full of irises.
Keegan looked surprised. “That’s really amazing, isn’t it? I mean, the way your family is, all interwoven and clannish, it’s hard to imagine there’s a forgotten ancestor.”
“Really? Are we like that?”
“Kind of, yeah. No offense or anything.”
“It’s okay. But am I like that?”
Keegan shrugged, amused and perplexed. “I don’t know, Lucy. It’s been a long time. But sure, you used to be pretty focused on all those complicated Jarrett dynamics.”
I nodded. It was probably true. When I came back I always felt as if I were standing on the edge of a river, watching the swirling currents of the family interactions from a safe distance. Now I wondered if I’d slipped into the midst of them again.
“The thing is, Keegan, I don’t think Rose was forgotten. I think she was covered up. Obscured. I think she was an early feminist—interesting and maybe scandalous. By the way, have you ever heard of Frank Westrum?”
“Westrum? Sure. Are they Westrum windows, then?” Keegan put down his coffee, his voice threaded with excitement. “They are, aren’t they? It crossed my mind, actually—it would make perfect sense—the style and the era are right. The church had records?”
“They did. The original receipt. I drove to Rochester yesterday, to the Westrum House. I met Oliver Parrott, by the way. He sends his regards.”
“Oliver Parrott, what do you know.” Keegan, smiling, shook his head. “Isn’t he something? Was he wearing a bow tie?”
“He was.”
“What a character. I like working with Oliver because he really cares about the quality of the glass, about making the repairs authentic. But he’s, shall we say, quite persnickety. He’ll make you do a thing over and over and over again until he feels you’ve got it right.”
“He’s really excited about the windows,” I said. “I maybe said too much, though. It didn’t cross my mind until I’d left that he’d want them for the Westrum House, but of course he will. I’m thinking I should call the church, let them know he might show up.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much. The Reverend Suzi is pretty savvy. Oliver was bound to find out sometime anyway.”
I picked up my cup, which Keegan had filled to the brim, and coffee sloshed onto the counter, onto a stack of papers. I grabbed a dish towel and sopped up the spill, drying off the top few papers, though a faint brown stain radiated across the center of a flyer. It was a copy of the one I’d seen hanging in the library, advertising the town meeting and setting out the Iroquois position on the land. At first I thought Keegan had just picked one up, but then I realized the whole stack was made up of these flyers.
“Yours?” I asked.
“Yep. Don’t worry about the spill. I’ve got plenty more.”
“I didn’t know you were involved in the land issues,” I said, remembering the solstice party, how Art and Joey—and yes, even Blake—had dismissed Keegan as being on the wrong side of history.
“I’m moderately involved. They asked me to help post these, and I said sure. Since Max was born it’s seemed more important to me, to have that heritage. To pass it along. And I happen to believe in this particular cause.”
“I guess the land is pretty valuable,” I said. “I think most of my relatives are angling to get it.”
“Thick as thieves,” Keegan said, cheerfully. “I was surprised at Blake, but there he is, right in the middle of it. The Landing,” he added, somewhat derisively. “Even the name is stuck in the past.”
“Well, what do you think the land should be used for?”
“That’s just it. That’s the point exactly. It shouldn’t have to be used for anything, not farms, not weapons bunkers, not high-end homes. It should just be.”
“Not casinos.”
“No, I agree with you. We’d like to keep it in some kind of preserve, if we got it. The thing is, Lucy, we see that land as a sacred trust. We want to protect it. And this is a rare opportunity. Even though they’ve had weapons and bombs and who knows what buried there all these decades, a lot of the land has been left alone. There’s a herd of white deer that’s evolved over the decades within those fences, and there’s a nesting place for black terns, which are endangered. We’ve been working with the conservation groups, and that’s been good. But the developers are hungry. Famished. To be fair, a lot of people have been hurting for a long time, and it got worse when the base closed. You don’t see it so much in town, because of all the tourists and the money on the lake. But drive out into the countryside, and it will hit you.”
“I kayaked a little way into the lake by the depot, but I was afraid to go too far. I saw the white deer, though. Five of them, disappearing into the trees. Beautiful. I noticed several streams; I hadn’t realized they were there. I wonder—has anyone done a hydrology study of that land? There’s been so much development on the lake in the last couple of decades. At some point, all the demands—the septic tanks, the piping of water—starts to be too much for the ecological system to handle. Plus there’s the issue of runoff.” I thought of Indonesia, the rising waters. “Build too much and there’s no place for water to go, and you get floods.”
“Well, that’s interesting. There’s been some flooding toward the south end of the lake, but I don’t think anyone has connected the dots to all the new houses. And I’m not sure about the runoff issues.” He smiled. “Maybe you should come on board as a consultant.”
I smiled, pleased at the compliment. “I’m sure there are local hydrologists who know the land better.”
“Well, maybe. I think you’d have a lot to offer, though. Want to see the whole thing, see what you think?” Keegan asked. “I was planning to take Max for a boat ride; his mother’s still sick and his babysitter can’t get here until noon.”
He smiled then, invitingly, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and I was taken back to that long ago spring when we’d spent so many nights on his motorcycle, in a boat, the wind in our faces. Except it didn’t feel so long ago now that I was back in town, finding reasons to drop by and say hello.
Stop,
I cautioned myself. Because I had this other life in another country, and where could anything with Keegan ever lead but heart-ache?
Just stop
.
“Sure,” I said.
“Great,” he said. “Let me get my keys.”
Downstairs, Courtney, the assistant, was carrying the green glass vase to the annealer. She lifted her protective glasses and called out to Keegan as we passed. Her eyes were pretty, dark and large, and her features were prominent, widely spaced; she was sturdy and strong, as well as striking. Keegan paused, talking with her for a minute, while Max and I lingered at the edge of the conversation. Then Courtney came over to stand with Max, and Keegan took my hand. “Want to try?” he shouted over the roar of the fire, and I nodded.
Keegan went through all the motions of the dance, gathering the molten glass, turning it against the metal table to start its shape. He placed his lips against the pipe, and the glass began to swell. “Your turn,” he shouted, then handed me the pipe. I put my lips where his had been, the metal warm against them. Keegan leaned close to help me turn the pipe, and I blew lightly, the glass growing larger. Back and forth we went, his lips on the metal, mine, our breath mingling, swelling the glass. Finally he tapped off the beautiful piece we’d created, the shape of a raindrop, and carried it to the annealer in heat-resistant gloves. I was trembling—from the weight of the pipe, from the heat, from the press of Keegan’s arms against mine. I thought of my dream, the spheres that had turned liquid in my hands. Keegan’s sure and steady touch with something so fragile was breathtaking. He came back with Max, and we stepped outside into the fresh, rainy air.
“That was just amazing.”
He smiled. “You did a great job. No two pieces are ever exactly alike—that’s the part that really appeals to me. It’s a pretty nice way to make a living.”
“When will it be done?”
“A couple of days. How about I come up and drop it off?”
“Good,” I said. “That would be good.”
Max was running on the grass, making wide circles.
“So,” Keegan said. “I have this supplier coming. Courtney reminded me. He just called from downtown, and he’ll be here any minute. It shouldn’t take long, but I have to see him. Would you mind taking Max for a walk, say, just down along the outlet? I’ll catch up in a minute, and then we can take a ride.”
“No problem,” I said. Though I’d spent very little time with small children, Keegan was a good father so effortlessly that I figured it would be a piece of cake. “I love that walk and I haven’t done it in years.”
“Great.” He turned back, disappearing into the glassworks, and I went down the sidewalk to catch up with Max, the warm pressure of the pipe still tingling on my lips.
“Where’s my dad?” Max asked.
“He’s got to do some work. He said we should take a walk and he’ll catch up.”
“I want to wait for my dad.”
“I was a friend of your dad’s, you know. A long time ago.”
“My dad knows everyone in town.”
“I’m not surprised. Shall we go?”
“No.”
We stood there for a moment in the misty air. Finally, I said, “You know, Max, your dad tells me you’re very smart. He said you know where the trail is. But I didn’t believe him.”
It was too easy, so easy I almost felt bad for having done it. Max stamped one foot on the sidewalk and said, “It is
so
true,” and then he took off.
The trail was narrow, gravel-covered, winding its way through the trees, which were still dripping a little from the morning rain. We followed the outlet, veering away from it and then drawing closer again. Max refused to hold my hand. He said he wanted to walk a few steps ahead because I didn’t know where I was going.
So I let him, watching him half-run, half-skip over the gravel. He was wearing jeans and a puffy red jacket and his shoes had little lights in the heels that flashed with every step. Max moved with the same lithe agility as his father.
“Maybe we should wait here for your dad,” I suggested as we made a slow curve that took us out of sight of the old factory buildings. There was a historical marker noting that this was the site of worker dormitories and later individual houses back at the turn of the century, when factories were thriving in The Lake of Dreams. The ruins of one such house had been left. Another structure, just the framing, a ghost of a building, stood beside it. “Hey, Max!” I called as the distance between us grew; he had gotten quite far ahead. “Come look at this!” He didn’t even turn around. “Hey!” I called again. “Wait up. You can’t go by yourself.”