The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [31]
“Lucy?” Keegan had crossed the room and stood beside me. “You okay?”
“Memory lane, that’s all,” I said. “It’s all so different than it was.”
“Isn’t it? It was a shock to me, too. But the way it happened was very serendipitous. I went to art school, you know. In Chicago. I never got to tell you. I was wait-listed all that spring, but I kept quiet about it, because in those days I didn’t really believe that the things I wanted for my life would happen. But I got in, and scraped together enough money and scholarships to go. The first couple of summers, I took a job on freighters, mostly traveling to Mexico and South America. I lived in Mexico for a while, too.”
“Sounds exciting—why did you come back?”
“My mom got sick. Cancer. She was so young, too. She died four years ago, and she was sick for a few years before that. I used to take the bus back to see her every couple of months. One of her nurses was Beth Rowland. Do you remember her?”
“Didn’t she have a brother? Dave?”
“That’s right, Dave. Well, one thing led to another. I transferred back here, to Alfred University, and Beth and I got married. Too fast, and we were too young. Way, way too young.” He folded his arms, and gazed out the window at the water. “By the time Max was born our marriage was on the rocks, pretty much. It was a bleak time for me. One day I was out walking along the canal and I saw FOR RENT signs on this building. The units weren’t finished yet, and no one else had bought one, so I had free choice; they wanted an anchor tenant, so the price was right. A place to live, and studio space—it was like a gift. So here I am.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“She always liked you, you know.”
I smiled, thinking about Beth Rowland, whom I remembered only vaguely—a graceful athletic girl with wavy brown hair. Max resembled her, it was clear, and for some reason that made me feel suddenly bereft. I’d never let myself think about what might have happened if I hadn’t cut Keegan off so abruptly. I’d needed to leave and I had, and yet our lives had been so deeply woven that last spring before my father died. It could have been me marrying Keegan, sharing this steady and interesting life he had made.
“Can I have some animal cookies?” Max called.
“Depends on how many giraffes you already ate,” Keegan called back. “More than eleventy zillion and you have to quit.” Max laughed. “I drive his mother crazy,” Keegan added to me in a softer voice. “But when he’s here, I want him to be happy.”
I asked where the bathroom was and Keegan gestured beyond the kitchen to another open space where beds were set up, a large one and a trundle bed, for Max. The bathroom was beyond, partition walls hardly taller than I was, and all rough plumbing. I dried my hands on a stiff white towel and came out, glancing around for a mirror.
That’s when I saw the windows, beautiful stained-glass windows propped against the larger windows of the loft. Two were contemporary, with bright colors and geometric shapes. I guessed that these were Keegan’s work. The third was very different, a lush, brilliantly toned scene in the Art Nouveau style. It depicted a story that seemed vaguely familiar, two men ripping open a sack of grain to reveal a silver chalice hidden in the center. A crowd was gathered, including several women, one, in a green gown, standing apart from the others. The artistry of the window was evident even to my untrained eye. Though it was very dirty—a corner had been cleaned, but that was all—the colors were rich and strong. However, that was all secondary, as far as I was concerned. What stopped me was the border, intricate, a pattern I’d seen for the first time just that morning: a row of overlapping spheres in white, interlocking moons nestled amid lacy vines, bright flowers.
“Keegan,” I called without moving. “Where did you get this window?”
“Which one?”
“The window with the grain and the chalice. The