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By Root 1213 0

beautifully, and my only regret is that you are not here to see them. Dearest, I think they would please you. I have taken all your suggestions about the passages to illuminate, and I have made the border and many of the windows exactly according to your design. Nelia visited yesterday and gave her enthusiastic approval of all we have done. Indeed, she called it a masterpiece. Well, I do not think so. But it has given me great pleasure. First the pleasure of working by your side, all the moments we have shared together all these years somehow woven into this final venture, so close to both our hearts. But there is the pleasure of the glass, too, the days in the glassworks blowing and shaping the sheets, the careful cutting and piecing together. Your templates are quite handsome, Rose, the windows, too. I will come to you on the 30th unless you are well enough to come home. Meanwhile, I send all my love.

Frank

Here it was—proof. She had known him, and she had designed the borders and been integral in the design of the windows. It was such an intimate letter, too, so warm, and it made me feel sure they had been lovers. I wondered how Oliver would react to this news. He’d need to see this letter sometime, though the thought of it made me uneasy. I suspected he wouldn’t like this upheaval in all the careful histories he’d written. For myself, I was glad to know that Rose, stranded in the train station, had somehow ended up all right.

The next letter was on the same thick paper as the very first one I’d read of Joseph’s, and in his handwriting. It was postmarked March 24, 1915.

Dear Rose,

We were up on the barn roof yesterday. A bright windy day. We were putting on new shingles and almost done. Jesse fell. I heard him shout and then he hit the ground. The barn is high and he landed on his back. We don’t know what it will mean but tonight he cannot move.

Your brother Joseph

And then the next, written on the same sort of paper, more than two months later:

25 May 1915

Dear Rose,

I am sorry to tell you that our cousin died yesterday. He has not been right since the fall. The pain is over for him, anyway. Cora does not want people in the house, so hold your visit to a better time. I am sending a picture Iris drew of the flowers in the garden.

Joseph

I checked the envelope again, but there was no drawing inside. Maybe Rose had hung it in whatever place she lived once she finally left the train station.

I heard a car in the driveway and got up to look out the window. It was a slow summer twilight, the shoreline glimmering with tiny lights in the violet dusk. Andy’s headlights flashed white against the worn side of the barn, and my mother got out. After a few minutes she came upstairs and stood in the doorway, holding a bag of take-out food in her good hand.

“I can’t wait to ditch this cast,” she said. “Hungry?”

“Starved.”

She sat down on the floor and spread out the containers, handed me a plate.

“We’re not allowed to eat in the bedrooms,” I reminded her.

She smiled, scooting back so that she could lean against the wall, reaching for the closest box of food. The scent of cashew chicken filled the room.

“I’m mellowing out,” she said. “Getting positively decadent. Most nights I don’t even bother to cook. I’ve lost my interest in it, I guess. Andy knew about this place,” she added, nodding at the food. “We had lunch there earlier this week. It’s good. So we stopped to pick up some takeout.”

“He seems nice,” I said finally, which sounded lame, and too little too late.

“He is. He’s very nice.” Her voice was a little reserved. “You know, I don’t need you to approve, you or your brother. It’s making me a little crazy. You’d both be up in arms if I poked around in your life this much.”

I wondered what Blake had said about Andy, but, chastened, decided not to ask. “So, what did you find?” my mother said after a minute. “Looks like treasure.”

“It is treasure. These are all letters by or to Rose Jarrett. A couple of them are from her brother, the illustrious Joseph Arthur Jarrett. I found them in the