Rainshadow Road (Friday Harbor #2)(16)

“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.”