Rainshadow Road (Friday Harbor #2)(55)

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.”

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.