Rainshadow Road

Five

It was exhausting, the exertions your mind went through after a breakup. Past events had to be recalled and parsed, conversations reevaluated. Clues were matched together like socks from the dryer. After all that effort, the wonder was not that you had broken up, the wonder was that you hadn’t noticed all the signs.

“Most people don’t have the time to put something in context at the moment it’s happening to them,” Justine said. “Most of us are too busy remembering the dentist appointment and trying to get to work on time, and remembering to clean the fish’s bowl before it gets tail rot.”

“I can’t believe how easily Kevin lied to me,” Lucy said. “I thought I knew him so well, and it turns out I didn’t know him at all.”

“That’s how betrayal works. People can’t hurt you unless they get you to trust them first.”

“I don’t think the goal was to hurt me,” Lucy said. “But somewhere along the line Kevin’s feelings for me changed, and I didn’t notice. Maybe he just fell in love with Alice, and it’s as simple as that.”

“Doubt it,” Justine said. “I think Kevin used Alice as a way to get out of the relationship with you, and now he’s stuck with her.”

“Even if that’s true, I need to understand why he fell out of love with me.”

“What you need is a new boyfriend.”

Lucy shook her head. “I’m taking a break from men until I can figure out why I keep ending up with the wrong ones.”

But her friend was having none of that. “I know a lot of great guys. I can fix you up with someone.” Justine was involved in nearly every kind of group or club in Friday Harbor. She volunteered for charity drives and fun runs, and sponsored a local women’s self-defense class. Although Justine’s involvements with men often lasted no longer than a patdown from a TSA agent, she had the knack of staying friends with the guys she had dated.

“Of course,” Justine said reflectively, “you may have to lower your standards just a little.”

“My standards aren’t high to begin with,” Lucy said. “All I want is a man who takes care of himself but isn’t a narcissist … who works but isn’t obsessed with his job, and is confident without being arrogant … and isn’t still living with his parents when he’s in his thirties, and doesn’t expect that taking me for a romantic dinner at a local restaurant on the first date is automatically going to lead to the removal of my clothes. Is that so unreasonable?”

“Yes,” Justine said. “But if you can forget that laundry list of qualities, you might find a pretty decent guy. Like Duane.”

She was referring to her current boyfriend, a biker who dressed in leathers and rode an ’81 Harley Shovelhead.

“Did I tell you I’m doing some work for Hog Heaven?” Lucy asked. It was the biker church that Duane attended.

“No, you didn’t mention it.”

“They commissioned me to replace that big window at the back of the building. I’m using some suggestions from the congregation. The horizontal part of the cross is going to be made with stylized motorcycle handlebars.”

“Very cool,” Justine said. “I can’t believe they could afford you.”

“They couldn’t,” Lucy admitted with a grin. “But they were such nice guys, I couldn’t turn them away. So basically we did a barter deal. I’m doing the glasswork for them, and whenever I need a favor in the future, I’m supposed to call them.”

After Lucy had moved out of the house with Kevin and into the room at Artist’s Point, she worked in her studio for nearly two days straight. She emerged only to catch a few hours of sleep in her room at the bed-and-breakfast, and returned to the studio before daybreak. As the biker church window took shape, Lucy felt an even deeper connection to her work than usual.

The church congregated in what had formerly been an old movie theater. The room was small and windowless except for the stained-glass panel that had recently been installed in the center of the front wall where a movie screen had once been. The entire building couldn’t have been more than twenty feet wide, with rows of six seats on either side of the aisle. “We’re aiming for heaven,” the pastor had said to her, “because hell won’t have us.” Lucy had known exactly how to design the window after those words.

She coupled the traditional lead came method—joining pieces of glass in a framework of soldered metal—with a modern technique of gluing a few sections of vibrant flash-glass plates to larger pieces of glass beneath. It had given the window extra depth and dimension. After working a glazing compound into the spaces between the lead and glass, Lucy soldered a matrix of reinforcement bars to the window.

Finishing the project around two in the morning, she stood back from the worktable. She felt a thrill of satisfaction as she looked at the window. It had turned out exactly the way she had envisioned—reverent and beautiful, a little quirky. Exactly like the biker church congregation.

It had felt good to do something productive, and focus on something other than her own problems. Her glass, she thought, skimming her fingertips over a gleaming translucent panel, had never let her down.

* * *

Lucy had put off calling her parents about her breakup with Kevin. Not only did she need time to think about what had happened and what to do next, but also she was certain that by now Alice would have called them and put her own spin on the situation. And Lucy wasn’t going to waste her emotions or her energy on a useless battle. Her parents would take Alice’s side, and Lucy would be expected to keep her mouth shut and fade into the background.

The Marinns had moved to a condo close to Cal Tech, where Phillip was teaching part-time. They flew up to Seattle every two or three months to visit their daughters as well as keep in touch with friends and colleagues. The last time they had visited, they had been displeased to learn that a generous birthday check they had given Lucy had been spent entirely on a new Jet Ski for Kevin.

“I had hoped you’d buy something nice for yourself,” her mother had scolded Lucy gently in private. “Or gotten your car fixed up and repainted. Something for your benefit.”

“It benefits me if Kevin is happy.”

“How soon after you received that check did he mention wanting a Jet Ski?”

Nettled by the question, Lucy had replied casually, “Oh, he didn’t mention it. I was the one who came up with the idea.”

Which hadn’t been true, of course, and her mother hadn’t believed it anyway. But it had bothered Lucy to realize that her parents didn’t like her boyfriend. Now she wondered what they would make of him dumping one sister in favor of the other. If it was what Alice wanted, if it made her happy, Lucy suspected they would find a way to live with it.

However, when her mother called from Pasadena, her reaction was different from what Lucy had anticipated.

“I just talked to Alice. She told me what happened. I can’t believe it.”

“I couldn’t either, at first,” Lucy said. “Then when Kevin asked me to move out, I started believing it.”

“Were there any signs? Did you have any idea this was coming?”

“No, I had no clue.”

“Alice says that you and Kevin were having problems.”

“Apparently,” Lucy said, “the problem we were having was Alice.”

“I told Alice that your father and I are incredibly disappointed in her, and that we can’t support this kind of behavior. For her own sake.”

“Really?” Lucy asked after a moment.

“Why do you sound surprised?”

Lucy gave a disconcerted laugh. “Mom, in my entire life, I don’t ever remember hearing you or Dad say that you were disappointed in anything Alice did. I thought you and Dad were going to ask me to accept Alice’s relationship with Kevin and just get over it.”

“You lived with that man for two years. I don’t know how you could ‘just get over it.’” There was a long pause. “I can’t imagine how you got the idea that your father and I would approve of Alice’s actions.”

Her mother sounded so genuinely bewildered that Lucy couldn’t repress an incredulous laugh. “You’ve always approved of whatever Alice wanted to do, right or wrong.”

Her mother was quiet for a moment. “I admit, I’ve always tended to overindulge your sister,” she eventually said. “She’s always needed more help than you, Lucy. She’s never been as capable as you. And she was never the same after the meningitis. Mood swings and depressions…”

“Those could also have been caused by being spoiled rotten.”

“Lucy.” Her mother’s tone was reproachful.

“It’s my fault too,” Lucy said. “I’ve enabled Alice as much as everyone else. We’ve all treated her like she’s a dependent child. I’m not ruling out the possibility that she’s had to deal with some long-lasting effects from the meningitis. It’s just … at some point Alice has to be responsible for her own behavior.”

“Do you want to come to California for a visit? Get away for a couple of days? Dad and I will buy you a ticket.”

Lucy smiled at the obvious effort to change the direction of the conversation. “Thanks. That’s really sweet of you. But all I would do is sit around there and mope. I think I’m better off staying here and keeping busy.”

“Is there anything you need?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m taking it day by day. I think the tough part is going to be running into Kevin and Alice—I’m not sure how I’m going to handle that yet.”

“Hopefully Kevin will have the decency to spend time with her in Seattle, rather than insist that she visit him on the island.”

Lucy blinked, perplexed. “They’re both going to be here, Mom.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t Alice tell you? She’s moving in with Kevin.”

“No, she—” Her mother broke off. “Dear Lord. Into the house you shared with him?”

“Yes.”

“What is Alice going to do with her Seattle apartment?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said dryly. “Maybe she’ll sublet it to me.”

“Lucy, that’s not at all funny.”

“Sorry. It’s just … Alice has stepped into my life like it’s a pair of old shoes. And the crazy thing is, she doesn’t seem to feel guilty at all. I actually think she feels entitled to my boyfriend. Like I was supposed to hand him over just because she wanted him.”

“It’s my fault. The way I raised her—”

“Wait,” Lucy said, more sharply than she had intended. She took a frayed breath and softened her tone. “For once, Mom, please, can something be her fault? Can we just agree that Alice did something wrong, and not find a dozen ways to excuse her for it? Because every time I think of her sleeping in my house, in my bed, with my boyfriend, I really feel like blaming her.”

“But Lucy—even though it’s probably too soon to bring this up—she is your sister. And one day when she comes to you with a sincere apology, I hope you’ll forgive her. Because family is family.”

“It is too soon to bring that up. Listen, Mom, I … need to go.” Lucy knew that her mother was trying to help. But this wasn’t the kind of conversation that had ever gone well for them. They could talk about superficial things, but whenever they ventured into deeper territory, her mother seemed compelled to tell her how to think and feel. As a result, Lucy usually confided the personal details of her relationships to her friends rather than her family.

“I know you think I don’t understand how you feel, Lucy,” her mother said. “But I do.”

“You do?” As Lucy waited for her mother to continue, her gaze fell on a print of Munch’s painting The Dance of Life. The work depicted several couples dancing on a summer night. But two women stood alone in the picture. The one on the left was dressed in white, looking innocent and hopeful. The older woman on the right, however, was dressed in black, the uncompromising angles of her body conveying the bitterness of a love affair gone wrong.

“Before I was married,” her mother said, “I was involved with a man—I loved him very much—and one day he broke the news to me that he was in love with my best friend.”

Her mother had never divulged anything of the kind to her before. Lucy gripped the phone, unable to make a sound.

“It was beyond painful. I had … well, I suppose you would call it a nervous breakdown. I’ve never forgotten that feeling of not being able to get out of bed. That feeling of your soul being too heavy for you to move.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said in a hushed voice. “It’s hard to think of you going through something like that. It must have been terrible.”

“The most difficult part was that I lost my boyfriend and my best friend at the same time. I think they both regretted the pain they had caused me, but they loved each other so much that nothing else mattered. They got married. Later my former friend asked for my forgiveness, and I gave it to her.”

“Did you mean it?” Lucy couldn’t help asking.

That provoked a rueful laugh. “I said the words. That was the most I could manage. And I was glad I had done that, because about a year after the wedding, she died of Lou Gehrig’s.”

“What about the guy? Did you ever get back in touch with him?”

“You could say that.” Her mother’s voice turned gently arid. “I eventually married him, and we had two daughters.”

Lucy’s eyes widened at the revelation. She had never known that her father had been married before. That he had loved and lost another woman. Was that the reason for his eternal remoteness?

So many secrets, hidden in a family’s history. Inside a parent’s heart.

“Why are you telling me now?” she finally managed to ask.

“I married Phillip because I still loved him, even though I knew that he didn’t care for me in the same way. He came back to me because he was grieving, and lonely, and he needed someone. But that’s not the same as being in love.”

“He does love you,” Lucy protested.

“In his way. And it’s been a good marriage. But I’ve always had to live with the knowledge that I was his second choice. And I would never want that for you. I want you to find a man who thinks you’re the sun and the moon.”

“I don’t think that guy is out there.”

“He is. And Lucy, even though you said yes to the wrong man, I hope that won’t cause you to say no to the right one.”