The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [113]
Except for a piece of fabric, she would have disappeared.
“Rose Jarrett wanted to be a priest,” I said. “Even though she knew she couldn’t, that was her secret dream.”
“Really?” Suzi, who had been studying the western wall of windows, turned to look at me again, her expression interested, curious. “Well, that explains some things about the windows. But it must have been frustrating—even heartbreaking—for her. This was in the 1930s?”
“No, when she was younger. It was around 1910, 1914.”
“I see. What did she do then?”
“It’s a sad story. She got involved with the wrong person. He was older, and he had power over her family, but I think she convinced herself it was love. She was young, fifteen. He was wealthy, and he left her when he learned she was pregnant. A sad story, and an old one, too. She came to this country with almost nothing. I don’t know what happened next, or how she came to know Frank Westrum.”
“That is sad,” Suzi said. “I wonder if she knew women were priests in the early church. There’s lots of evidence to support it.”
“I don’t think so. I think she felt she was trespassing even to suggest it. She stole a chalice,” I added. “A silver chalice from the church, because she had no money.”
I said this quickly, glancing away as I spoke. I don’t know what I expected—shock or anger or dismissal—but Suzi just nodded.
“She must have been very frightened, to have done that.”
“I think she was. It haunted her later.”
I folded my arms. The air in the chapel was damp and stale and chilly. I wished I’d brought a sweater. Thinking of the images of all these women, all this beautiful art, locked away for decades, I was filled with a sudden sense of emptiness. What, I wondered, had become of all the people who had filled this chapel on that final Sunday morning? What had happened to the whispered prayers and hopes and grief and dreams of this community, now so completely vanished? What had happened to Rose?
“What about the other windows?” Zoe asked. “Are they all prophets, too?”
Keegan and Oliver had drifted to the back of the chapel, where they were talking as intently about glass and dates and Frank Westrum as we were about the lives of these women. The photographer was moving from window to window, taking multiple shots of each.
“Some are. They’re all very interesting. I was thinking about it earlier, trying to see the thread connecting them. Here’s what I see: they are all strong women who weren’t afraid to challenge conventional thinking. For instance, that’s the Pharaoh’s daughter, pulling Moses from the river in defiance of her father’s orders. Next to her is Ruth, presenting the grain she has gleaned in the fields to her mother-in-law, Naomi. When their husbands died they went against expectations for widows and supported each other. There’s the Samaritan woman at the well, giving water to Jesus, and crossing all sorts of ethnic, gender, and cultural lines to do so. Again, like Mary Magdalene, she’s the one who’s given the story to tell. Then, in the final window, there’s the story of Mary and Martha, which you may already know—it’s the one where Martha complains that Mary isn’t helping with the housework, and Jesus stands up for Mary, saying it’s all right for her to take off her apron and sit down. To listen. It may not sound like much, but remember that we’re talking about a culture that didn’t value women as anything more than house-keepers, property. And yet here’s Jesus, talking with Mary, taking her seriously. It’s so radical. Revolutionary, really—a total inversion of the expectations of the time. Some scholars also think that these two women may not be sisters at all, but rather two