Rainshadow Road

Sixteen

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.

“How did he get into the house?” Sam asked, looking from one of them to the other. “Did someone leave the door open?” With interest, he saw that Lucy’s face had gone scrupulously blank.

“No,” Holly said in excitement. “Lucy did it!”

“She did what?” Sam asked, not missing the way Lucy had blanched.

“She made it out of a juice glass,” Holly exclaimed. “It was in her hand, and it turned into a bird. Right, Lucy?”

“I…” Visibly agitated, Lucy searched for words, her mouth opening and closing. “I’m not quite sure what happened,” she finally managed to say.

“A bird flew out of your hand,” Holly said helpfully. “And now your juice glass is gone.” She picked up her own juice glass and thrust it forward. “Maybe you can do it again.”

Lucy shrank back. “Thank you, no, I … you should keep that, Holly.”

She looked so thoroughly guilty and red-faced with worry that it actually gave weight to the crazy idea that had entered Sam’s mind.

“I believe in magic,” Lucy had once said to him.

And now he knew why.

It didn’t matter that it defied logic. Sam’s own experiences had taught him that the truth didn’t always seem logical.

As he stared at her, he found himself trying to separate out a tangle of thoughts and emotions. For his entire adult life, he had kept his feelings organized in the way that some people kept their cutlery in a knife block, sharp edges concealed. But Lucy was making that impossible.

He had never told anyone about his own ability. There had never been a point. But in an astonishing turn of events, it had become a basis for connection with another human being. With Lucy.

“Nice trick,” he said softly, and Lucy blanched and looked away from him.

“But it wasn’t a trick,” Holly protested. “It was real.”

“Sometimes,” Sam told his niece, “real things seem like magic, and magic seems real.”

“Yes, but—”

“Holls, do me a favor and get Lucy’s medicine bottle from the kitchen table. Also some water.”

“Okay.” Holly jumped off the sofa, causing Lucy to wince.

Grooves of pain and distress had appeared on Lucy’s face. The exertions of the past few minutes had been too much for her.

“I’ll replace the cold packs in a few minutes,” Sam said.

Lucy nodded, practically vibrating with misery and worry. “Thank you.”

Sam lowered to his haunches beside the sofa. He didn’t ask for explanations, only let a long minute pass. In the silence, he took one of Lucy’s hands, turned it palm-up and stroked the insides of the pale fingers until they were half curled like petals.

The color had leached from Lucy’s face, except for the crimson band that crossed the tops of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. “Whatever Holly said,” she managed, “it isn’t what—”

“I understand,” Sam said.

“Yes, but I don’t want you to think—”

“Lucy. Look at me.” He waited until she brought her gaze to his. “I understand.”

She shook her head in bewilderment.

Wanting to make things clear, but hardly able to believe he was doing it, Sam extended his free hand to the terrarium on the coffee table. The miniature orchids, temperamental as usual, had started to droop and turn brown. As he let his palm hover over the vessel, the flowers and button ferns strained upward toward his touch, the petals regaining their creamy whiteness, the green plants reviving.

Silent and startled, Lucy moved her gaze from the terrarium to Sam’s face. He saw the wonder in her eyes, the quick shimmer of unshed tears, the flush rising up her throat. Her fingers gripped his tightly.

“Since I was ten,” Sam said in answer to her unspoken question. He felt exposed, could feel his heart beating uncomfortably. He had just shared something too personal, too intrinsic, and it alarmed him that he didn’t regret it. He wasn’t sure that he could stop himself from doing and saying even more in the irresistible urge to get closer to her.

“I was seven,” Lucy whispered, a hesitant smile ghosting across her lips. “Some broken glass turned into fireflies.”

He stared at her, fascinated. “You can’t control it?”

She shook her head.

“Here’s the medicine,” Holly said brightly, coming back into the room. She brought the prescription bottle and a large plastic cup of water.

“Thank you,” Lucy murmured. After taking the medicine, she cleared her throat and said carefully, “Holly, I was wondering if we could keep it private, about how the hummingbird got into the room…”

“Oh, I already knew not to tell anyone,” Holly assured her. “Most people don’t believe in magic.” She shook her head regretfully as if to say, too bad for them.

“Why a hummingbird?” Sam asked Lucy.

She had difficulty answering, seeming to struggle with the novelty of discussing something she had never dared put into words. “I’m not sure. I have to figure out what it means.” After a pause, she said, “Don’t stay in one place, maybe. Keep moving.”

“The Coast Salish say the hummingbird appears in times of pain or sorrow.”

“Why?”

Taking the medicine bottle from her, Sam replaced the cap as he replied in a neutral tone. “They say it means everything’s going to get better.”

* * *

“Holly, you’re a corporate pirate,” Sam said that night, delivering a handful of Monopoly money to his giggling niece. “I’m out, guys.”

After a dinner of lasagna and salad, the four of them—Sam, Lucy, Mark, and Holly—had played board games in the living room. The atmosphere had been fun and easygoing, with no one behaving as if anything unusual had happened.

“You should always buy a railroad when you get a chance,” Holly replied.

“Now you tell me.” Sam gave Lucy, who was curled up in a corner of the sofa, a condemning glance. “I thought making you the banker would have gotten me a break.”

“Sorry,” Lucy replied with a grin. “Have to play by the rules. When it comes to money, the numbers don’t lie.”

“Which shows you know absolutely nothing about banking,” Sam said.

“We haven’t finished,” Holly protested, seeing Mark dismantle the arrangement on the board. “I still haven’t beaten everyone.”

“It’s bedtime.”

Holly heaved a sigh. “When I’m a grown-up, I’ll never go to bed.”

“Ironically,” Sam told her, “when you’re a grown-up, going to bed is your favorite thing.”

“We’ll clean up the game,” Lucy said to Mark with a smile. “You can take Holly upstairs now if you’d like.”

The little girl leaned forward to give Sam butterfly kisses with her eyelashes, and they rubbed noses.

As Mark went upstairs with Holly, Lucy and Sam organized the game pieces and the various colors of paper currency.

“She’s a sweetheart,” Lucy said.

“We lucked out,” Sam said. “Vick did a good job with her.”

“So have you and Mark. Holly is obviously happy and well taken care of.” Lucy wrapped a rubber band around the stack of accumulated money and handed it to him.

Sam closed the game box and gave Lucy a friendly, deliberate smile. “Want some wine?”

“That sounds nice.”

“Let’s drink it outside. There’s a strawberry moon out.”

“Strawberry moon? Why is it called that?”

“Full moon for June. Time to gather ripe strawberries. I would have assumed you’d heard the term from your dad.”

“I grew up hearing a lot of scientific terminology, but not the fun stuff.” Lucy grinned as she added, “I was so disappointed when my father told me that stardust was cosmic dirt—I imagined it was going to sparkle like pixie dust.”

In a few minutes Sam had carried her out to the front porch and lowered her into a wicker armchair with her leg propped on an ottoman. After handing her a glass of wine that tasted like berries and a hint of smoke, Sam sat in a chair beside hers. It was a clear night. You could see into the dark and infinite spaces between the stars.

“I like this,” Lucy said, realizing that Sam had poured their wine into old-fashioned jam jars. “I remember drinking out of these when I used to visit my grandparents.”

“In light of recent events,” Sam said, “I decided not to trust you with our good glassware.” He smiled at her expression.

As she averted her gaze from his, Lucy noticed that one of the Velcro straps on her splint wasn’t perfectly aligned. Awkwardly she reached down to straighten it.

Without a word Sam came to help her.

“Thank you,” Lucy said. “Sometimes I get kind of picky about wanting things to be lined up.”

“I know. You also like the seam of your sock to run straight across your toes. And you don’t like the foods on your plate to touch.”

Lucy gave him a sheepish glance. “Is it that obvious that I’m obsessive-compulsive?”

“Not really.”

“Yes it is. I used to drive Kevin crazy.”

“I’m very tolerant of ritualistic behavior,” Sam said. “It’s actually an evolutionary advantage. For example, a dog’s habit of turning circles on his bedding before lying down—that came from ancestors checking for snakes or dangerous creatures.”

Lucy laughed. “I can’t think of any benefits for my ritualistic behavior—it only serves to annoy people.”

“If it helped to get rid of Kevin,” Sam said, “I’d say it was a clear advantage.” He sat back in his chair, contemplating her. “Does he know?” he asked eventually.

Understanding what he was referring to, Lucy shook her head. “No one does.”

“Except me and Holly.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen in front of her,” Lucy said. “I’m sorry.”

“Everything’s fine.”

“Sometimes if I feel something very strongly, and there’s glass nearby…” Her voice faded, and she hitched her shoulders in an awkward shrug.

“Emotion causes it to happen,” he said rather than asked.

“Yes. I was watching Holly color a picture, and I was thinking about teaching an art class for children. Showing them how to make things out of glass. And the idea made me feel incredibly … hopeful. Happy.”

“Of course. When you have a passion for something, there’s nothing better than sharing it.”

Since that afternoon, something had altered between them. It was a good feeling, a safe feeling that Lucy wanted to savor. Letting it take hold, she looked at him. “Does emotion play a part in what you do? Your ability, I mean.”

“It feels more like energy. Very subtle. And it’s not there when I’m away from the island. When I was in California, I half convinced myself I’d imagined it. But then I came back here, and it was stronger than ever.”

“How long did you live in California?”

“For a couple of years. I had a job as a winemaker’s assistant.”

“Were you alone? I mean … were you going out with anyone?”

“For a while I went out with the daughter of the guy who owned the vineyard. She was beautiful, smart, and she loved viticulture as much as I did.” His thoughts had turned inward, his voice quietly reflective. “She wanted to get engaged. The idea of marrying her was almost tempting. I liked her family, loved the vineyard … it would have been easy.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want to use her that way. And I knew it didn’t have a chance in hell of lasting.”

“How could you be sure? How can you know without trying?”

“I knew it the moment she and I started talking about making it permanent. She was certain that if we just went ahead and flew off to Vegas and did it, we would be fine. But to me it sounded like someone throwing a roll of paper towels and a can of frosting into an oven and saying, “You know, I think there’s a good chance this is going to turn into a chocolate cake.”

Lucy couldn’t help laughing. “But that just means she wasn’t the right woman. It doesn’t mean you couldn’t have a good marriage with someone else.”

“The risk-benefit ratio has never been worth it to me.”

“Because you saw the worst side of love while growing up.”

“Yeah.”

“But according to the principle of balance in the universe, someone out there has to have the best side of love.”

Considering that, Sam raised his jam jar in a negligent toast. “To the best side of it. Whatever that is.”

As they clinked glasses and drank, Lucy reflected that there were probably many women who would regard Sam’s views on marriage as a challenge, hoping to change his mind. She would never be that foolish. Even if she didn’t agree with Sam’s beliefs, she would respect his right to have them.

Past experience had taught her that when you loved a man, you had to take him “as is,” knowing that although you might be able to influence some of his habits or his taste in neckties, you would never be able to change who he really was deep down. And if you were lucky, you might find a man who felt the same way about you.

That, she thought, was the best side of love.