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By Root 1283 0

on the table. So, I’d been right; she had modeled for him, if not in the studio in Rochester, then earlier, in New York City. I wondered if their relationship had been more than artist and model. Beatrice was her friend, and I didn’t want to imagine that Rose had betrayed her. I understood Oliver a little bit better in that moment, the fierce attachment he’d formed to Frank Westrum and his reluctance to have that persona challenged in any way. I found my phone and pulled up the picture I’d kept, the one of the Joseph window in Keegan’s studio. The image was so small, but I stared at it, trying to decipher the woman’s features, wondering if it was Rose, and if so, what she had been thinking as she stood in his silent studio, letting him draw her image late into the night.

The next was a card, white stock, with the initials CWE in gold script.

2 May 1916

My dear Rose,

I hope this letter finds you as well as I left you after my visit. It gladdens my heart a great deal to see you are happy in your new life, and to know that your brave stand for the rights of women did not end completely badly. I promised to write to you of Iris, and I am happy to report that she is very well. I saw her yesterday, playing in the front yard with dolls made out of fabric, and when I paused and spoke to her she spoke to me so nicely, with fine manners and, I am delighted to say, a lively and curious intellect as well. She is thriving. You would be proud. I will check on her from time to time and write with any news. Meanwhile, rest your heart—she is safe and very well.

Yours truly, Nelia

Another brief letter, in the familiar bold handwriting.

17 May 1916

Dear Sister,

Iris had her 5th birthday in the garden. Cora baked a cake that looked like a flower, gold and white icing and yellow custard in the center. We had lemonade. Iris has a new purple dress and new shoes, too. Cora put away her mourning clothes last month. I work the farm but I am looking into starting a lock business. I have a knack with locks.

Mrs. Elliot told me she saw you. She said you are fine. I have a hard time listening to that woman. She is still causing all sorts of trouble about the vote. I am studying to become a citizen and you should, too.

Joseph

10 September 1916

Dear Sister,

Your letter arrived and I am glad to know Mother and Father are well. Ellen wrote to me, too. I married Cora yesterday. It has been a year since Jesse died, we have waited. I asked Cora but she doesn’t think you should return to this house. I was hoping this was Jesse’s view, but it is hers, too. I am sorry. I am sorry I did not see you, too. I did not establish an account with the money you sent because there have been expenses, for clothes and new shoes and also books. I have spent wisely. Iris is happy, she plays in the garden all the time.

Joseph

The next letter in the pile was thick, written by Rose and dated earlier that same summer, written on thin paper with garlands of light blue flowers—forget-me-nots, I realized—framing the corners.

June 1916

Dearest Iris,

I saw you today, playing outside. You are so grown up! Your hair is so long—and you had grown tall. But I knew it was you. I stood beneath the oak tree in Mrs. Elliot’s front yard, and I watched you. I can hardly describe how full and happy my heart was in that moment.

It had been almost a year and a half since I had seen you. Finally, I had saved enough money to visit. It was the modeling that made it possible. It was hard to sit in the studio evening after evening, for it was cold in the winter and stifling in the summer, and I had to hold every muscle very still, even when I was about to faint with fatigue. Watch your eyelids, he’d warn, hold your chin a little higher, and I would do my best. He is a kind man, if somewhat gruff and abrupt, and my friend Beatrice is kind, too. Sometimes she teaches me design, for she studied before she married and she is very, very good.

So I sat, and worked, and saved, and I came to see you.

It is June, the first bloom of summer, but it was chilly when