by Lisa Kleypas
Slowly he made his way back inside the house. Alex was sitting at the bottom of the main staircase, patting Renfield, who was at his feet.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
Sam sat beside him and told him everything, hearing his own voice as if it came from outside himself. “Not sure what to do now,” he said gruffly.
“Forget her and move on,” Alec said prosaically. “That’s what you always do, right?”
“Yeah. But it never feels like this.” Sam dragged his hand through his hair until it stood in wild tufts. He felt physically ill, nauseous. Like his veins were filled with poison. He ached in every muscle. “I think I’m coming down with something.”
“Maybe you need a drink.”
“If I start that right now,” Sam said roughly, “I may never stop. So do me a favor and don’t say that again.”
A short silence followed. “Since you’re already in a shitty mood,” Alex ventured, “I have something to tell you.”
“What?” Sam asked irritably.
“I need to move in with you next week.”
“What?” Sam asked again, in an entirely different tone.
“Just for a couple of months. I’m low on cash, and Darcy got the house as part of the settlement. She wants me out of there while she tries to sell it.”
“Christ,” Sam muttered. “I just got rid of Mark.”
Alex gave him a disquieting glance, a troubling shadow in his eyes. “I have to stay here, Sam. I don’t think it’ll be long. I can’t explain the reason why.” He hesitated, and managed to say the word he’d used only a handful of times in his entire life. “Please.”
Sam nodded, chilled by the thought that the last time he’d seen that exact look in someone’s eyes, the pupils black as midnight, the wide staring bleakness of a lost soul, was when he’d seen his father just before he died.
* * *
Unable to sleep, Lucy worked in her studio for most of the night, finishing the stained-glass window. She wasn’t aware of the passing hours, only noticed that the sky was lightening and the early-morning bustle of Friday Harbor was beginning. The tree window was gleaming and flat and still, but every time she put her fingertips to it, she felt a subtle vitality coming off the glass.
Feeling drained but resolute, Lucy walked to her condo and took a long shower. It was the day before Alice’s wedding. Tonight the rehearsal dinner would take place. She wondered if Kevin had talked to Alice or broken up with her, or had kept silent about his second thoughts.
Lucy was actually too tired to care one way or the other. She wrapped her wet hair in a turban, put on some comfortably aged flannel pants and a thin stretchy tank top, and crawled into bed.
Just as she was beginning to sink into a deep sleep, the phone rang.
Lucy groped for the phone. “Hello?”
“Lucy.” It was her mother’s brittle voice. “Are you still asleep? I hoped Alice was with you.”
“Why would she be with me?” Lucy asked around a yawn, rubbing her sore eyes.
“No one knows where she is. I got a call from her just a little while ago. Kevin’s gone.”
“Gone,” Lucy repeated hazily.
“He took the first flight out this morning. That asshole changed the plane tickets that we bought for their honeymoon—he’s going to West Palm by himself. Alice was in hysterics. She’s not at their house, and she won’t answer her phone. I don’t know where she is, or even how to start looking for her. Some of the out-of-town guests are already here, and more are getting in today. It’s too late to cancel the flowers or the food. That little bastard—why did he have to wait until the last minute to do this? But the important thing is Alice. I don’t want her to do something … dramatic.”
Painfully Lucy sat up and staggered out of bed. “I’ll find her.”
“Do you need Dad to come with you? He’s dying for something to do.”
“No, no … I’ll handle it by myself. I’ll call you when I find out something.”
After she hung up, Lucy pulled her hair into a ponytail, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and fumbled with the coffee machine until she managed to produce a pot of inky black liquid. It was too strong—she hadn’t measured properly. Even a heavy dose of half-and-half didn’t lighten the color. She grimaced and drank it like medicine.
Picking up the phone, she dialed Alice’s number, preparing to leave a message. She was almost startled when Alice answered.
“Hi.”
Lucy opened and closed her mouth, wanting to say ten different things at once. She finally settled with an abrupt, “Where are you?”
“The McMillin mausoleum.” Alice’s voice was raw.
“Stay there.”
“Don’t bring anyone.”
“I won’t. Just stay there.”
“All right.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
* * *
The mausoleum, named Afterglow Vista, was one of the most beautiful spots on the island. It was located in the woods north of Roche Harbor. The founder of a hugely successful lime and cement company, John McMillin, had designed the monument himself. It was a massive columned structure, Masonic in its heavy use of symbolism. Towering pillars circled a stone table and seven stone chairs. One of the columns had deliberately been left unfinished, beside the empty space where an eighth chair should have been positioned. According to local rumor, visiting spirits from nearby graves had been seen sitting at the table after midnight.
Unfortunately for Lucy, the forested trail leading to Afterglow Vista was approximately a half-mile long. She walked gingerly, hoping she wasn’t doing any damage to her recently healed tendons. After passing through a little graveyard with many of the headstones surrounded by tiny fences, she saw the mausoleum.
Alice was sitting on the winding steps, dressed in jeans and a Henley shirt. She cradled a mound of foamy white fabric—some kind of tulle or chiffon—in her lap.
Lucy didn’t want to feel sorry for her sister. But Alice’s face was wretched, and she looked all of about twelve years old.
Hobbling to her—Lucy’s leg was beginning to hurt—she sat beside Alice on the chilled stone steps. The forest was quiet but not at all silent, the air filled with rustling of leaves, chitters of small birds, flaps of wings, droning of insects.
“What is that?” Lucy asked after a while, looking at the white fabric on Alice’s lap.
“Veil.” Alice showed her the pearl-studded headband the tulle was attached to.
“It’s pretty.”
Alice turned to her, sniffling, and gripped the sleeve of Lucy’s shirt with both hands as a small child might. “Kevin doesn’t love me,” she whispered.
“He doesn’t love anyone,” Lucy said, putting an arm around her.
Another pained whisper. “You think I deserve this.”
“No.”
“You hate me.”
“No.” Lucy turned enough to put her forehead against her sister’s.
“I’m fucked up.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know why I did it. Any of it. I shouldn’t have taken him away from you.”
“You couldn’t have. If he’d really been mine, no one could have.”
“I’m so sad. So s-sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Alice was quiet for a long time, her tears seeping through the fabric of Lucy’s sleeve. “I couldn’t do anything. Mom and Dad … they never let me try anything. I felt useless. Like a failure.”
“You mean when we were growing up.”
Alice nodded. “And then I got used to having everything done for me. If something got hard, I gave up and someone always finished it for me.”
Lucy realized that every time she and her parents had stepped in to take care of Alice, they had given her the message that she couldn’t do it for herself.
“I’ve always been jealous of you,” Alice continued, “because you could do anything you wanted. You’r
e not afraid of things. You don’t need anyone to take care of you.”
“Alice,” Lucy said, “you don’t need Mom and Dad’s permission to take charge of your own life. Find something you want to do, and don’t give up on it. You can start tomorrow.”
“And then I’ll fall flat on my face,” Alice said dully.
“Yes. And after you fall, you’ll pick yourself up off the ground, and stand on your own two feet without anyone helping you … and that’s when you’ll know you can take care of yourself.”
“Oh, bite me,” Alice said, and Lucy smiled and hugged her.
Twenty-one
Everyone on the island, including Sam’s vineyard crew, had heard about the cancelation of Kevin and Alice’s wedding, and all the subsequent fallout. Everyone was talking about it. The only reason Sam had listened to the gossip was in hopes of catching any little crumb of information about Lucy. But her name was seldom mentioned. He’d heard that the Marinns had gone ahead and given the rehearsal dinner, and the next day they had held the reception that had been planned for after the wedding. There had been music and food and drinking. Sam had also heard that the Marinns were considering suing Kevin for at least part of the expenses, including the plane ticket he’d used to go on his self-bestowed vacation.
It had been three days since Lucy had visited Rainshadow. Mark, Maggie, and Holly had just come back from the honeymoon, and Sam and Alex had helped to move them into their new place, a remodeled three-bedroom farmhouse with a pond.
When Sam couldn’t stand it any longer, he called Lucy and left a short message, asking if he could talk to her. She didn’t return the call.
Sam was at wit’s end. He couldn’t eat or sleep. Not thinking about Lucy took more energy than thinking about her.
Mark had talked to him at length about the situation. “This Mitchell Art Center thing sounds like a big deal.”
“It’s as prestigious as hell.”
“So you don’t want to ask her to turn it down.”
“No. I’d never want Lucy to make that kind of sacrifice. In fact, I’m glad she’s going. It’s good for both of us.”
Mark had given him a sardonic glance. “How exactly is it good for you?”
“I don’t do commitment.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t,” Sam had snapped. “I’m not like you.”
“You’re exactly like me, idiot. Trying like hell to avoid a repeat of what we went through growing up. Do you think it was easy for me, admitting that I was in love with Maggie? Asking her to marry me?”
“No.”
“Well, it was.” Mark smiled at Sam’s baffled expression. “Find the right person, Sam, and the most difficult thing in the world becomes the easiest thing in the world. I had the same problems as you. No escape from that, in the Nolan family. But I’ll tell you this—there’s no way I could let Maggie go without at least telling her I loved her. And once I did that … I had no choice but to hold my breath, and take the leap.”
* * *
Approximately eighty-five and a half hours after Sam had last seen Lucy—not that he was counting—a delivery was made to the house at Rainshadow Vineyard. A couple of guys with a pickup truck carefully unloaded a large flat object and brought it up the front steps. Coming in from the vineyard, Sam reached the house just as the men drove off. Alex was in the entrance hall, staring down at the partially uncrated object.
It was the tree window.
“Is there a note with it?” Sam asked.
“Nope.”
“Did the delivery guys say anything?”
“Only that it was going to be a bitch to install.” Alex lowered to his haunches, looking at the window. “Look at this thing. I expected something kind of flowery and Victorian. Not this.”
The window was strong and bold and delicate, layers of glass fused in natural colors and variegated textures. The tree trunk and branches, made of lead, had been incorporated into the window in a way Sam had never seen before. The moon seemed to glow as if from its own light source.
Alex stood and reached for the phone in his back pocket. “I’m going to call some of my guys to help me put the window in. Today if possible.”
“I don’t know,” Sam said.
“About what?”
“I don’t know if I want to install it.”
Alex responded with an impatient scowl. “Don’t give me that crap. This window has to go into this house. The place needs it. There was one just like it a long time ago.”
Sam gave him a quizzical glance. “How do you know that?”
Alex’s face went expressionless. “I just meant that it seems right for the place.” He walked away, dialing his phone. “I’ll take care of it.”
* * *
Thanks to the accuracy of Lucy’s measurements, Alex and his workmen were able to fit the stained-glass window against the existing panel, and seal the edges with clear silicone caulking. By late afternoon, the majority of the installation had been completed. After the silicone had had twenty-four hours to cure, they would finish the window with wood trim around the edges.
“Just installed the window,” Sam texted Lucy. “You should come see it.”
No reply.
* * *
Usually Sam was slow to emerge from sleep, but this morning his eyes flipped open and he sat bolt upright. He felt annoyed, uneasy, like he was about to jump out of his skin. Trudging into the bathroom, he shaved and took a shower. A routine check in the mirror revealed a taut, bitter expression that didn’t seem to belong to him, but was oddly familiar. Then he realized it was the expression Alex usually wore.
He dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, and headed down to the kitchen for coffee and breakfast. On the way, however, he saw the stained-glass window at the second-floor landing, and he went still.
The window had changed. The glass sky was now flushed with pink and apricot dawn, the dark branches covered with luxuriant green leaves. The restrained hues of the window had given way to radiant color. Brilliant colors had infused the glass, the sight entering his eyes like visual music, reaching a place in him where deepest instinct resided. It was more than beauty, the effect of this window. It was a form of truth that he couldn’t deny. Truth that broke apart his defenses, and left him blinking as if he’d just come from a dark room into sunlight.
Slowly Sam went outside into the quiet vineyard, to see what kind of magic Lucy had made for him. The air was perfumed from growing things, and salted by the ocean. To Sam’s heightened senses, the vines were greener than usual, the soil richer. Before his eyes, the sky turned a shade of blue so radiant that he had to squint against the sting of tears. The land was idealized as a painter might have conceived it, except that it was real, art you could walk through and touch and taste.
Something was at work in the vineyard … some force of nature or enchantment, a wordless language that summoned the vines in a canticle of respiration.
Dreamlike, Sam wandered to the transplanted vine that no one had been able to identify. He felt its energy before he even touched it, the trunk and vines thrumming, flourishing with life. He sensed how deeply the rootstock had delved into the ground, anchoring the plant until nothing could have moved it. Passing his hands across the leaves, he felt them whispering to him, felt the vine’s secret being absorbed into his skin. Picking one of the blue-black grapes, Sam put it between his teeth and bit down. The flavor was deep and complex, evoking the bittersweet shallows of the past, then rolling into the rich dark mystery of things still just beyond his reach.
Hearing the sounds of an approaching car, he turned to see Alex’s BMW proceeding along the drive. Alex never came to the house this early. Slowing, Alex rolled down the car window and asked, “Want a lift?”
In a trance, Sam shook his head and motioned for him to go on. He couldn’t explain what had happened, couldn’t begin to find words … and Alex would discover it soon enough.
By the time Sam made it back to the house, Alex h
ad already reached the second-floor landing.
Sam went upstairs and found his brother staring fixedly at the window. There was no wonder in his face, only the baffled tension of a man who related to the world on his own visceral and literal terms. Alex wanted an explanation when there clearly was none. Or at least none that he would accept.
“What did you do to it?” Alex asked.
“Nothing.”
“How did—”
“I don’t know.”
They both gazed at the stained glass, which had continued to alter as Sam had walked outside … the burnt-ash moon had disappeared, and the glass sky had turned gold and blue, intoxicated with sun. The leaves were even more profuse, emeralds embedded in spindrifts that nearly obscured the branches.
“What does it mean?” Alex wondered aloud.
Emotion made visible, Lucy had once said about her stained glass.
This, Sam thought, was love made visible. All of it. The vineyard, the house, the window, the vine.
The realization was so simple that many people would dismiss it as being beneath more sophisticated minds. Only those with some remnant potential for wonder would understand. Love was the secret behind everything … love was what made vineyards grow and filled the spaces between the stars, and fixed the ground beneath his feet. It didn’t matter if you acknowledged it or not. You couldn’t stop the motion of the earth or hold back the ocean tides, or break the pull of the moon. You couldn’t stop the rain or pull a shade over the sun. And one human heart was no less a force than any of the rest.
The past had always surrounded him like the bars of a prison cell, and he’d never understood that he’d had the power to walk out at any time. He’d not only suffered the consequences of his parents’ sins, he had voluntarily carried them with him. But why should he spend the rest of his life being weighted down by fears, hurts, secrets, when if he just let go, he would be free to reach for what he wanted most? He could have Lucy. He could love her madly, joyfully, without limit.
All he had to do was hold his breath and take the leap.
Without a word to his brother, Sam bounded downstairs and grabbed the keys to his truck.
* * *