• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1269 0

of his gin and tonic before he went on. “Anyway, my great-grandfather did very well for about a decade and a half, creating commissioned windows for the wealthy, but he didn’t change with the times. Art Nouveau flashed hot for a while, but after the war, it definitely went out of favor. Plus, Frank Westrum was irascible, fierce about his own vision, and stubborn in his convictions. He felt opalescent glass defeated the central beauty of stained glass, which gets its power from its translucence, and he held fast to his aesthetics even when history seemed to be passing him by. One has to admire him for that. Nonetheless, he did maintain a small but loyal following, enough to let him earn a living, but he wasn’t well known in his lifetime. This,” he added, leaning forward, “is what makes your find in the church so utterly fascinating. Now tell me about this ancestor of yours.”

“Rose Jarrett. She had a daughter, born in 1911. That’s all I know.”

“Now, don’t be coy,” Oliver said.

I laughed in surprise, glad I hadn’t given Iris’s name. “I’m not sure I know how to be coy. It was my search for information about Rose that brought me here, to the Westrum House. He used a motif that was important to her. A motif she may have designed. I’ll show you.” I found the image on my phone again and pointed it out to Oliver. “I’d love to know more about her, but I don’t have much to go on, just a note she wrote in 1925.”

Studying the motif, Oliver grew thoughtful. “Frank was in Rochester by then,” he said. “He moved here because it was cheaper, you see, after his wife died. Also, maybe, for a fresh start. She had relatives in the area, so he knew about it. And as you may have surmised from his work, he loved the landscape here, and all the water.”

“Beatrice Mansfield.”

“Yes, you know of her? Beatrice. My great-grandmother. My mother was named for her. We—the family, that is—have always speculated that she was the model for the window, actually. It’s possible she was the model for your window, too. It’s even very likely, given how closely they resemble each other. Don’t you agree?”

“I suppose,” I said, reluctant to let go of my image of Rose Jarrett. But I didn’t persist, because I realized what it might mean if Rose had modeled so extensively for Frank Westrum, what sort of intimacy it might imply—an intimacy Oliver Parrott might not wish to entertain. The wind fluttered our napkins, blew one off the table.

“Ah—looks like we’re in for some more weather,” Oliver said, picking up the check, refusing with a smile and a wave of one hand when I offered to pay.

The windy air tasted of rain; a few scattered drops hit my cheek. We stood up and I shook Oliver Parrott’s hand. He gave me a business card and asked me to call him if I found anything else, and mentioned that he planned to visit St. Luke’s quite soon. At this I felt a sudden ripple of panic; I’d been so absorbed in my own questions that I hadn’t even considered the things I might be accidentally setting in motion. Once Oliver saw the Wisdom window and the Joseph window, he’d want them for the Westrum collection, of course; he’d want the windows from the chapel, too, if he found out about those. And though I didn’t know for certain, Oliver Parrott’s polish and his ease with money led me to imagine that the Frank Westrum Preservation Society might have enough money to make the church an offer it would have a hard time refusing. I don’t know why this felt so wrong to me, or why I felt as if I’d inadvertently betrayed something vital and essential with all my blind searching, but it did, and I worried about it all the way back, along the interstate and then the smaller highways, through all the towns with their beautiful storefronts, their tattoo parlors and dollar stores and fast-food joints, the real estate offices and grocery stores and coffee shops and gift shops and old opera houses.

The storm that had been threatening came through with a sudden intensity as I turned down the lake road, the rain pounding down so fiercely that I could hardly see. I made it to one of the scenic overlooks