The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [70]
“Are your drawers still full? How ridiculous is that, after all these years? You know, I was just thinking we could start going through some of this stuff while you’re here. There are decades of clothes and bric-a-brac and old papers, generations of it. I haven’t had the heart or energy to tackle that project, but it really needs to get done.”
So she could sell the house and the land, I thought, but didn’t say.
“I guess we could do that. This weekend, maybe? Before Yoshi gets here. He’s been delayed a couple of days, so once he gets here I won’t want to spend time organizing.”
“That’s too bad he’s delayed. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Okay. I don’t mean to pry. Just thinking that we could clean out a room for him, too, while we’re at it.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“Mom, we’ve been living together for two years.”
“I know. And you can arrange things however you want. But it’s still my house, and I’m setting up a room for him.”
I laughed, and then she did. “Oh, Mom. Whatever.”
It was misty as we drove into town, the fog collecting in the dips of the road so that we drove through clouds, the hood of the Impala the color of egg yolks amid the viscous white until we emerged on the tops of the hills and it took its place with all the other colors—the deep green of the corn, the flashing red of barns, the blue patches of sky that were trying to break through. My mother and I didn’t speak much, though she reached over and squeezed my hand when I dropped her off. I parked in the same place in the lot, far away from everything, and then walked down the street to Avery’s for a cup of coffee. She wasn’t there, so I couldn’t apologize for having slipped up and told my mother about the baby. As always, the air in the restaurant was fragrant with butter and honey, yeast and coffee, and this morning the inside tables were full of people talking quietly over the food, wet umbrellas folded at their feet. When I stepped outside, Dream Master rose stark against the gray sky, the brick darkened with rain.
The glassworks was closed to tours on Friday mornings in order to catch up on special orders and give everyone a chance to get ready for the waves of weekend tourists. The gift shop was open, though, the door ajar and a display of new bowls in the window—bright ruby, sapphire, and amethyst—but I didn’t want to go in. Instead, I walked a few feet to stand outside the plate-glass windows, where I could watch the artisans plunging their pipes into the furnace and pulling out the molten glass, forming it with their breath, the vessels taking slow shape, one by one: a vase, a wine goblet, a clear glass bowl. I rang the bell twice, but if they heard it they ignored me; they didn’t even glance up. Keegan wasn’t working—at least I couldn’t see him—but I wanted to tell him about my trip to Rochester and meeting Oliver Parrott. I wanted to tell him about Rose. After a minute of standing in the drizzle, I remembered that he’d had given me his cell number when we were at the church. I fished around in my purse until I found it, punched the numbers in. He answered on the fourth ring, and when I told him I was downstairs, he buzzed me in.
The glassblowing room was hot, despite the high windows open all along the canal and the huge fans moving constantly. Courtney, the assistant, glanced up and nodded, turning her attention almost immediately back to the shape emerging from her blowpipe, the swelling glass a deep iridescent green, like a mallard’s neck. I paused for a moment, watching her fluid, expert motions, the glass that shifted and grew as if alive, before I crossed the room and went upstairs.
Keegan was sitting on a beanbag chair, his long legs extended and crossed at the ankles. Max was sitting next to him, caught in the curve of his father’s arm, while Keegan read out loud. It wasn’t a board book, or even an early reader, but rather a collection of Greek myths. They were reading the story of Demeter