The Lake of Dreams (10 page)

Could it? I wondered. Could the past ever be just the past? Still, I felt relieved of a burden I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying.

Keegan’s attention had been drawn elsewhere.
Back to the furnaces,
I thought at first. Or maybe his assistant, her short red hair swinging as she worked, was more to him than an employee. But then I saw that his gaze had gone even beyond the furnaces to the far wall, where a door had opened in the brick. A small boy with curly dark hair stood in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, barefoot. A young woman waited behind him, her hands on his shoulders. She pointed in our direction and the boy waved, and Keegan waved back, standing up.

“Damn. I asked Tina not to bring him down here. It’s too dangerous.” Keegan was already swinging one leg over the rail. He called back over his shoulder, “Lucy, if you’ve got another minute, come on and meet Max. Meet my son.”

Most people had gone by then, but a couple had stayed to tend the furnaces, keeping them stoked until the next round of tours. They kept an eye on me as I navigated the edges of the room, careful to stay far from anything that glowed, still trying to get over the shock of hearing Keegan say “my son.”

I caught up with him at the doorway. He was squatting, talking to Max, who looked to be about six or seven years old. He had eyes as dark as Keegan’s and he was holding something in his fist. Slowly, Max opened his fingers and Keegan picked a beetle up from his small palm.

“Very nice,” he said. “Did you bring it for lunch?”

Max laughed, clearly delighted. “That’s silly, Dad.”

“Silly? Why so? Lots of protein in bugs.”

Max dissolved into giggles. “Dad.”

“I told him it was gross,” Tina said, “but he wanted to keep it.”

“This is my old friend Lucy,” Keegan said, handing me the beetle with its shiny brown sides. “Maybe she’ll stay for lunch. Should we invite her? She might like bugs.”

“You know what?” I said. “One time I did eat bugs for lunch. Deep-fried crickets, to be exact.”

Max was wide-eyed. “Did you like them?”

“They were crunchy,” I said, putting the beetle back in Max’s small, damp palm.

Keegan chuckled. “Seriously, come on up, Lucy, if you have time.” He stepped aside so Tina could leave. She was slender, waiflike, and very quiet, her hands plunged into the pocket of her hoodie as Keegan pulled bills from his wallet and thanked her for coming on such short notice. He pointed Max back toward the stairs. “Bugs or not, I need to get you some lunch. The next babysitter’s supposed to be here at one o’clock. Mom’s sick, isn’t she, buddy?” Keegan said, ruffling Max’s hair.

“I shouldn’t come up, then,” I said. “I don’t want to disturb her.”

“Oh, she’s not here,” Keegan said.

“Mom lives in Auburn,” Max confirmed.

“We’re separated,” Keegan explained. “We have been for about the last year. The regular babysitter couldn’t make it on such short notice, so we had Tina, and this afternoon we’ll have Tracy. Max and I also worked out a deal, didn’t we? A little bit of coloring, a little bit of Play-Doh, a visit from Dad every hour, and a video.”

“Plus the cell phone.”

“There you go,” Keegan said, tapping his pocket. “It’s right here.”

We entered a loft space with soaring ceilings and beautiful golden pine floors, sanded and polished, scars and all. The vast paned windows I remembered from the factory were still in place across one wall, and Keegan had set up little living areas, using furniture to mark off spaces. A couch faced the windows overlooking the canal, flanked by a coffee table and two chairs. Adjacent to this was an area dedicated to television and games, with beanbag chairs and low tables all around. This was clearly the space Max had been frequenting, for there were crayons everywhere, stuffed animals and plastic blocks, an open box of animal crackers, and a wealth of crumbs on the rug.

On the opposite side of the loft, the windows were much higher, light drifting down from another story. Here, Keegan had installed a kitchen with a counter that opened onto a dining area. His furniture was garage-sale eclectic, the cabinets stainless steel, the dining room Danish modern from the 1950s. Against a white wall there were shelves displaying rows of molded blue glass insulators, all lined up like little glass hats; these had been made in this factory in the town’s glory days, Keegan explained, before oil prices went sky-high and fiber optics were invented and businesses fled south. He made a habit of collecting them. I touched the sea-blue glass, clear and full of air bubbles, trying to imagine myself back in a time when these rooms had been filled with the roar of machines, the heat of glass, the voices of the workers calling. Silence now; the waters of the canal flowed below.

Keegan had gone right to work, placing slices of wheat bread on the counter, slathering on peanut butter and jelly.

“Want a sandwich, Lucy?”

“No, thanks.” I slid onto a stool, watching Keegan slap the sandwiches together, feeling right at home. I thought that it must be good to be Max, to have a father as silly and interesting and attentive as Keegan was. “I just ate.”

“Apple? Glass of milk?”

“I’m fine.”

I wanted to ask Keegan whom he’d married, but not with Max in the room.

“This will sound crazy,” I said instead, “but this feels like exactly the same space where you used to hang out. The same view from the windows anyway.”

Keegan cut Max’s sandwich into quarters and looked up.

“You have a good eye. This
is
just the same space.”

“Really? Your old crash pad?”

“My home away from home,” he agreed, opening the refrigerator for some milk.

Max asked for apples, and I wandered back to the space with the overstuffed furniture, gazing out at the canal with its steady waters. In high school Keegan had discovered this place and carved out a spare retreat, furnished with a battered leather sofa and an orange crate table, amid the abandoned machinery and debris. He came here to clear his head, he said, but the one time I’d come here with him I’d felt claustrophobic, the heat of the day trapped in the motionless rooms and the water, unconcerned with anything, drifting by outside. I preferred the thrill of the motorcycle rides, or the nights when we took the canoe out onto the dark lake, paddling deep and then letting the boat drift, trying not to capsize when we kissed.

“Lucy?” Keegan had crossed the room and stood beside me. “You okay?”

“Memory lane, that’s all,” I said. “It’s all so different than it was.”

“Isn’t it? It was a shock to me, too. But the way it happened was very serendipitous. I went to art school, you know. In Chicago. I never got to tell you. I was wait-listed all that spring, but I kept quiet about it, because in those days I didn’t really believe that the things I wanted for my life would happen. But I got in, and scraped together enough money and scholarships to go. The first couple of summers, I took a job on freighters, mostly traveling to Mexico and South America. I lived in Mexico for a while, too.”

“Sounds exciting—why did you come back?”

“My mom got sick. Cancer. She was so young, too. She died four years ago, and she was sick for a few years before that. I used to take the bus back to see her every couple of months. One of her nurses was Beth Rowland. Do you remember her?”

“Didn’t she have a brother? Dave?”

“That’s right, Dave. Well, one thing led to another. I transferred back here, to Alfred University, and Beth and I got married. Too fast, and we were too young. Way, way too young.” He folded his arms, and gazed out the window at the water. “By the time Max was born our marriage was on the rocks, pretty much. It was a bleak time for me. One day I was out walking along the canal and I saw FOR RENT signs on this building. The units weren’t finished yet, and no one else had bought one, so I had free choice; they wanted an anchor tenant, so the price was right. A place to live, and studio space—it was like a gift. So here I am.”

“I’m sorry about your mother,” I said. “I didn’t know.”

“She always liked you, you know.”

I smiled, thinking about Beth Rowland, whom I remembered only vaguely—a graceful athletic girl with wavy brown hair. Max resembled her, it was clear, and for some reason that made me feel suddenly bereft. I’d never let myself think about what might have happened if I hadn’t cut Keegan off so abruptly. I’d needed to leave and I had, and yet our lives had been so deeply woven that last spring before my father died. It could have been me marrying Keegan, sharing this steady and interesting life he had made.

“Can I have some animal cookies?” Max called.

“Depends on how many giraffes you already ate,” Keegan called back. “More than eleventy zillion and you have to quit.” Max laughed. “I drive his mother crazy,” Keegan added to me in a softer voice. “But when he’s here, I want him to be happy.”

I asked where the bathroom was and Keegan gestured beyond the kitchen to another open space where beds were set up, a large one and a trundle bed, for Max. The bathroom was beyond, partition walls hardly taller than I was, and all rough plumbing. I dried my hands on a stiff white towel and came out, glancing around for a mirror.

That’s when I saw the windows, beautiful stained-glass windows propped against the larger windows of the loft. Two were contemporary, with bright colors and geometric shapes. I guessed that these were Keegan’s work. The third was very different, a lush, brilliantly toned scene in the Art Nouveau style. It depicted a story that seemed vaguely familiar, two men ripping open a sack of grain to reveal a silver chalice hidden in the center. A crowd was gathered, including several women, one, in a green gown, standing apart from the others. The artistry of the window was evident even to my untrained eye. Though it was very dirty—a corner had been cleaned, but that was all—the colors were rich and strong. However, that was all secondary, as far as I was concerned. What stopped me was the border, intricate, a pattern I’d seen for the first time just that morning: a row of overlapping spheres in white, interlocking moons nestled amid lacy vines, bright flowers.

“Keegan,” I called without moving. “Where did you get this window?”

“Which one?”

“The window with the grain and the chalice. The window with the border.”

“The Joseph window?” Keegan came into the bedroom. Max followed, climbed up on the trundle bed, and lay down on his stomach, watching us with his head resting on his folded arms.

“Tired, buddy?” Keegan asked. He pulled a blanket up over Max’s shoulders. “How about a rest? I’ll put your tape on.”

“I don’t want to,” Max said, but he didn’t move.

“I know. Just for a minute, close your eyes.”

Keegan pressed a tape into an old machine and a cheery song about an animal parade came on. With a nod to me, he picked up the window with the border and carried it to the living area, where he leaned it up against the wall of windows. The colors were even stronger here.

“It really needs a cleaning, as you can see. They took it from the chapel on the depot land. For some reason it wasn’t ever installed—they found it in a closet in the back. You know the depot is closed, right?”

“I saw a protest there the day I flew in.”

He nodded. “Yeah, there’ll be a fight over that land, I’m sure. But when the base was built—when that land was originally taken—there was a thriving village there, and a small mission chapel that had been built by the church in town. After Pearl Harbor, the land was cleared fast to create the base. It was a war effort, and though it’s kind of hard to believe it these days, people simply packed their personal things and left, and everything—houses, barns, shops—was razed. But the church officials protested, arguing that the building and the land were a sacred trust. Plus, there was a small cemetery, as well as an Iroquois burial ground right next to it. So when the village was razed, the church was simply boarded up and left standing, and the cemeteries, too; that was the compromise. A few months ago someone went inside, for the first time in decades, I suppose. They found this window leaning against the wall behind the altar and started to take the protective boards off the others. They’ve been pretty much forgotten all these decades. Everyone has been amazed by the quality of the glass art. There are nine other windows in addition to this one. Those I’ve seen so far are quite exceptional. Stunning, really. I was hired to do an early assessment of their quality and to recommend a studio for restoration, which they desperately need. Since this one wasn’t in the wall, I brought it here to have a closer look.”

“Do you know who made it?”

“A few ideas, but nothing solid. Why?”

I sat down on the floor in front of the window, studying the colorful scene dimmed with grime.

“It’s this border,” I said, tracing a section with my finger, the pale, interlocking spheres of glass, thickened in places, the vines and flowers made of leading. “There was a piece of cloth in a trunk in our house. My mother found it, years ago. It’s got this same pattern woven into the fabric. I’ve never seen anything like it, have you?”

“No, I haven’t. Not in glass, anyway.”

“I suppose it could be a common pattern for the era. I’d have to do some research. But the coincidence is so striking. It seems there must be a connection.”

Keegan squatted down beside me, so close I could feel the heat of his arm.

“The church might know something about the donor. There’s at least one other window with this border motif. Much larger and grander, actually; it also came from the chapel, and they’ve already had that one restored. It’s on display in the church downtown for the time being, so people can see it while the other windows are assessed and cleaned. I think they’re hoping to raise some more money. The restoration is pretty expensive. You really should see it, just because it’s so beautiful. I’m working there tomorrow, if you want to stop in.”

“Thanks. I’d like to. Keegan, why did you call this the Joseph window?”

He laughed. “That’s what the rector calls it. Otherwise, I have no idea. I think it’s the story about the coat of colors, when Joseph gets tossed into the well and taken off to Egypt. As I understand it, this particular scene comes at the end, when his brothers finally find him during the famine.”