Lisa Kleypas - Rainshadow Road

“The tree would be done in lead?” Sam asked, studying the image, and Lucy nodded.

Imagining the picture as a stained-glass window for the front of the house, Sam felt a chill of rightness, of certainty too strong to be questioned. The house would never be complete until this was replaced.

“What would it take,” he asked slowly, “for you to make this window? Exactly the way you saw it in the dream.”

“I would do it for nothing,” came Lucy’s emphatic reply. “After the way you’ve taken care of me…”

Sam shook his head decisively. “This window’s going to take some work. The design is intricate. What do you usually charge for something like that?”

“It depends on the type of glass, and how much detailing I would do … gilding and beveling, things like that. And that’s not including the installation, especially since you would need it to be weather-sealed—”

“Ballpark guess.”

Lucy gave a little grimace. “Three thousand dollars for everything. But I could skimp in some areas to bring down the cost—”

“No skimping. This is worth doing right.” Sam reached over and tucked a paper napkin at the top of Lucy’s shirt. “What do you think about making this window at your own pace, and in return we’ll lower the monthly rent for the Friday Harbor condo? That way it’s fair for both sides.”

Lucy hesitated, and Sam smiled. “You know you’re going to say yes,” he said. “You know that window has to be made. By you.”

Over the next two days, Sam treated Lucy with implacable friendliness. In conversation, he steered away from personal matters, and whenever he came into physical contact with her, he was carefully impersonal. Understanding his decision to establish a safe distance between them, Lucy tried her best to accommodate him.

Sam took obvious enjoyment in his vineyard work, hand-tilling the soil, caring for the vines with a mixture of backbreaking effort and patience. As he explained the grape-growing process to Lucy, she began to understand more about the sophistication of terroir, the matching of the right grape varietal to the specific plot of land and its unique character. There was a difference, Sam had explained, between treating grape growing as a purely technical process, or having real communication with the land, a true give-and-take.

Living in proximity with the Nolans, Lucy saw that the three of them were a close and loving family unit. They had well-established routines and regular times for eating and sleeping, and it was clear that Holly’s well-being was her uncles’ primary concern. Although Mark was the father figure, Sam had his own place in Holly’s affections. Every day after school the little girl chattered endlessly to him about her activities and her friends, and what had happened during recess that day, and she listed the contents of her friends’ lunch bags in an effort to convince him to let her have some junk food. It both amused and touched Lucy to see how patiently Sam listened to Holly’s concerns.

Lucy gathered from the way that Holly talked about Sam that he had infused their makeshift family with a sense of adventure. She told Lucy that Sam had taken her to explore the tidepools of False Bay, and to kayak on the west side of the island to see orca whales. It had been Sam’s idea to take Holly and Mark to build a driftwood fort on Jackson’s beach. They’d given each other pirate names—Captain Scurvy, Toothless McFilthy, and Gunpowder Gertie—and they had roasted hot dogs over a campfire.

After Holly came home from school, she watched television with Lucy in the living room. Sam had gone upstairs to clear out a pile of debris from the attic renovation. While Lucy reclined on the green sofa with her leg propped up, she and Holly snacked on oatmeal cookies and apple juice.

“These are special,” Lucy said, holding up one of the small Ruby Red antique juice glasses. “You can only get this color by adding gold chloride to the glass.”

“Why are the sides bumpy?” Holly asked, inspecting her own juice glass.

“That’s called a hobnail pattern, after the nails they used for shoes.” Lucy smiled at the little girl’s interest. “Do you know how to tell if the glass was made by hand? Just look at the bottom for a pontil mark—that’s a little scar where the glassmaker’s rod was attached. If you can’t find one, it was made by machine.”

“Do you know everything about glass?” Holly asked, and Lucy laughed.

“I know a lot, but I’m learning new things all the time.”

“Can I watch you make something out of glass?”

“Of course. When I get better, you can visit my studio and we’ll make something together. A little suncatcher, maybe.”

“Yes, yes, I want to do that,” Holly exclaimed.

“We can start right now—the first step in the process is to create a design. Do you have crayons and paper?”

Holly flew to her art cabinet, pulled out some supplies, and hurried back to Lucy. “Can I draw anything I want?”

“Anything. We might have to simplify it later, to make sure the pieces are the right shape and size for cutting … but for now, set your imagination free.”

Holly knelt beside the coffee table and set out a pad of paper. Carefully she pushed aside an apothecary jar terrarium, filled with moss, button ferns, and white miniorchids. “Did you always want to be a glass artist?” she asked, sorting through crayons.

“Ever since I was your age.” Gently Lucy tugged the pink baseball cap from Holly’s head and flipped it backward to make it easier for her to see. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A ballerina or a zookeeper.”

As she watched Holly concentrate on her drawing, her small hands gripping the crayons, Lucy was suffused with a feeling of satisfaction. How natural it was for children to express themselves through art. It occurred to Lucy that she could start an art class for children at her studio. Was there a way to honor her craft more than to share it with a child? She could start with just a few students, and see how it went.

Considering the idea, daydreaming, Lucy played with the empty Ruby Red juice glass, rubbing her thumb over the hobnail pattern. Without warning, her fingers turned hot, and the glass began to change shape in her hand. Startled, Lucy moved to set the glass down, but in the next instant it had disappeared, and a small, living form bolted away from her palm. With a loud buzz, it zipped across the room.

Holly let out a shriek and jumped onto the sofa, causing Lucy to flinch in pain. “What is it?”

Stunned, Lucy wrapped her arms around the girl. “It’s okay, sweetie, it’s just … it’s a hummingbird.”

Nothing like this had ever happened in front of someone before. How could she explain it to Holly? The tiny red bird batted against the closed windows in its efforts to escape, the impact of its delicate bones and beak making audible taps.

Gritting her teeth with effort, Lucy leaned to grip the window frame and tried to push it upward. “Holly, can you help me?”

Together they struggled with the window, but the frame was stuck. The hummingbird flew back and forth, striking the glass again.

Holly let out another cry. “I’ll get Uncle Sam.”

“Wait … Holly…” But the little girl had gone in a flash.

* * *

A cry from downstairs caused Sam to drop a garbage bag filled with debris. It was Holly. His hearing had become attuned so that he could instantly tell the differences among Holly’s screams, whether they were happy, fearful, or angry. “It’s like I know dolphin language,” he had once told Mark.

This shriek was a startled one. Had something happened to Lucy? Sam went for the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

“Uncle Sam!” he heard Holly shout. She met him at the bottom of the stairs, bouncing anxiously on her toes. “Come and help us!”

“What is it? Are you okay? Is Lucy—” As he followed into the living room, something buzzed by his ear, something like a bee the size of a golf ball. Sam barely restrained himself from swatting at it. Thankfully he hadn’t, because as it went to a corner of the ceiling and batted against the wall, he saw that it was a hummingbird. It made tiny cheeping noises, its wings a blur.

Lucy was on the sofa, struggling with the window.

“Stop,” Sam said curtly, reaching her in three strides. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“He keeps slamming against the walls and windows,” Lucy said breathlessly. “I can’t open this stupid thing—”

“Humidity. It swells the wood frame.” Sam pushed the window upward, leaving an open space for the hummingbird to fly through.

But the miniature bird hovered, darted, and batted against the wall. Sam wondered how they could guide it to the window without damaging a wing. At this rate it was going to die of stress or exhaustion.

“Let me have your hat, Holls,” he said, taking the pink baseball cap off her head. As the hummingbird harrowed and hovered in the corner of the room, Sam gently used the cap to constrain it, until he felt the bird drop into the canvas pouch.

Holly gave a wordless exclamation.

Carefully Sam transferred the bird to the palm of his hand and went to the open window.

“Is he dead?” Holly asked anxiously, climbing onto the sofa beside Lucy.

Sam shook his head. “Just resting,” he whispered.

Together the three of them watched and waited, while Sam extended his cupped hands beyond the sill. Slowly the bird recovered. Its heart, no bigger than a sunflower seed, spent heartbeats in music too fast and fragile to hear. The bird rose from Sam’s hands and flickered away, disappearing into the vineyard.