The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [171]
When my mother arrived with Andy a few minutes later, Yoshi and I introduced them to Ned and Carol, and then we stood together in a friendly but uneasy cluster. I’d sent a copy of the will to Ned, who’d told me he intended to consult a lawyer to see what they might do. I’d gone with my mother to a lawyer, too, a friend of Andy’s who did estate work and who’d suggested things could potentially be complicated. Still, it wasn’t clear what would happen, and we hadn’t spoken of the matter to the Stones since I’d made that initial call.
When we finished touring the first floor of the Westrum House, admiring all the windows, Oliver led the way to the stairwell, where the woman in her golden-green dress stood with her arms full of flowers. I hadn’t seen the window since I’d discovered the letters Rose had written, since I’d entered into her story and understood my connection to her, and I’d forgotten how captivating the window was, six feet high, the cascading irises in her arms life-sized and vibrant. I stood staring at her image, her familiar eyes. I imagined her posing in a light-filled studio, Frank Westrum sketching the curve of her ear, the elegant line of her neck, pausing for a moment as he was swept through with his love for her, which he could never translate exactly onto paper, or into glass.
“It’s beautiful, is it not?” Oliver said when we paused on the landing to admire it. I’d given him copies of some of Rose’s letters, finally, and he’d shared some correspondence from Frank to Cornelia that he’d found in his archives. “She is beautiful. Mrs. Stone, I think your mother was the model for this portrait. Look at her eyes. And look at what she’s holding in her arms—they are irises, Mrs. Stone.”
Iris didn’t speak, and though we all looked at her, it was impossible to read her expression. She didn’t take her gaze from the window for a long time. Finally, she released Oliver’s arm and sat down right on the stairs, in the middle of the third step from the bottom.
“Mom?” Ned said.
“I’m all right.” She pushed back the sleeve of her suit jacket and held up her wrist. “Ned, Carol. Look at that pendant she’s wearing. It matches this bracelet. Ned, you gave this to me a few years ago, do you remember? You told me you’d found it. Where?”
“In the boxes I was going through. I didn’t tell you exactly, because they were in a box of things that had been sent to you from Rose when she died. From Frank Westrum, actually, that name is on some of the envelopes, though of course it never meant anything to us, not until now. Dad showed me where it all was. He said you’d wanted to throw it out, but he’d put it away because he thought it might be important someday. You know how he was.”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s the way he was. Did you save the rest?”
Ned nodded. “There are some drawings. There’s a piece of stained glass, a field full of blue irises.”
“Ned,” she said, after a long moment. “Mr. Parrott. I wonder if I could sit here for a while, just by myself. I’d like to do that, if the rest of you don’t mind.”
So we left her, following Oliver upstairs to a corner room with tall windows on two walls. Oliver had gathered all the stained-glass windows he’d had in storage that contained images related to Rose, and these hung against the clear glass.
The first window I’d seen, the window that had started me on this whole adventurous search, was hanging on the closest wall, backlit. It had been cleaned since I’d seen it in Keegan’s studio, then still coated in grime from its years sitting uncovered in