So let me apologize. And let me also inform you of a recent discovery I made while going through the studio more thoroughly. I found a piece of paper, shoved in the back of the drawer marked 1938, with a penciled note. It said only this: Iris Jarrett Wyndham Stone. I would not have noted this before, but now of course I assume she is your Iris. I send this news with my best wishes to you and to your family.
Iris Jarrett Wyndham Stone. The note from Oliver was so generous, so unexpected. I read her married name over and over again, and whispered it out loud. I remembered finding her baptismal certificate and that the name Wyndham had meant nothing to me then. Now the sad and complicated history radiated from every letter. I did a quick Internet search but came back with nothing except Wyndham Stone Turf near Batavia and Stone Jar Antiques in Oswego. If Iris was alive, and she could be, she could be anywhere at all.
When I’d worked my way halfway down the screen, I found a message from Serling University, which housed the Vivian Branch archives in its history collection, and had been working all this time on my request. I’d forgotten all about this. I opened it to find a note from the archivist saying she had come across two letters of interest, both written by Frank Westrum to Vivian Branch and her sister Cornelia. She had scanned the documents into PDF files and these were attached. I clicked on the first.
9 September 1938
My dearest Vivian and Cornelia,
I write to let you know the windows are complete.
Last evening I left Rose resting in the parlor of the sanatorium, feeling better. I hope so, at least. I stood outside for a very long time in the dusk. The light was on, I saw her shadow move behind the curtains. She was able to see all the windows but the final one before her health deteriorated, but I hope she will rally enough to come home before I must ship them off to you. They have meant so much to her. I would like her to see them all together, just once. People passed me on the street, talking, and some glanced at me lingering at the bottom of the steps, but I stayed until she went upstairs to her room and put the lamp out and slept. I hope she slept. Increasingly, she coughs so much that it is hard for her to rest. This is such a cruel disease, and I am so helpless in the face of it. I walked for a long time by the river. It was dawn before I turned home and fell into a restless sleep myself.
There is no need for me to go on; I know my suffering will only bring you grief. But I write to let you know that all the windows are done. I believe they are beautiful. They hang against the windows in my studio, and I think you would be pleased to see them, all the women gathered, their feet resting gently on the border Rose designed. She took it, as you may know, from an image she saw as a child, a pattern she sketched and remembered for its beauty. Though I followed your instructions about the women you wished to depict, I consulted Rose about the images and design and the choice of colors, as I’m sure you wished me to do. Truly, we were partners in this creation, and so I think of these as being her windows in some true sense, born of your generosity and vision, yes, and of my work, true, but born also of my conversations with Rose, who is a sister to you in your concerns. You will understand that I made these windows with her in mind, thought of her with every piece of glass I cut, and I put them all together as if I could assemble our lives in such a beautiful and accurate way. Which of course, I cannot.
In any case, they are finished and await your inspection.
Regards, Frank
28 September 1938
My Dear Vivian and Cornelia,
May this letter find you well in The Lake of Dreams. I was so pleased to have you visit, and to hear from you so quickly. It is joyous to me that you like the windows. I know that the two of you and Rose have dreamed of such a chapel for decades, and your generosity in funding this project will inspire generations, I feel sure. I find the windows have a life of their own, a resonating beauty apart from anything we did to create them, and I shall be sorry when they do not stand in my studio any longer.
But pack them up, I have. The shipping company will collect them tomorrow, and they will be delivered to you no later than two weeks from now.
Also the last funds have arrived, and I thank you. Do let me know when the installation will be. I cannot wait to see your chapel.
Rose is a little better now. She did come here one afternoon and stood for a long time amid the windows. They say she may be able to return home next week, so we hope.
Regards, Frank
I read these letters several times, exhilarated at this direct, clear link between Frank Westrum and Rose. And because I felt magnanimous and thankful to Oliver for sharing what he’d found, I forwarded the notes to him, without letting myself consider it too fully. By the time I looked up, the level of activity had risen, people streaming in and scattering throughout the terminal. Yoshi’s flight had landed. I closed the computer and stood up to wait, still thinking of Frank’s notes, the poignant image of him standing outside the sanatorium, watching her silhouette through the curtains, beyond the layers of glass. Thinking of them working together, Rose drawing with the same sharp lines that comprised her handwriting, sketching the designs Frank would translate into glass, a beautiful symbiosis. His notes were undercut with such sadness, and I wondered what Rose had been suffering from, what cruel disease he meant. Tuberculosis, I guessed, and it made sense that she might have contracted this from the work she’d done with Vivian. Or perhaps her bout with influenza had left her weakened, or damaged her lungs in some way.
People, brisk or languorous or weary, began to stream down the escalator. Yoshi was among the last, looking a little dazed, a bag slung over his shoulder. He was wearing cargo shorts and a blue T-shirt and his hair was short. He was tan and so good-looking that I felt stilled for a moment as I watched him riding down the escalator, considering all that had happened in this brief time, how close I had come, in my pursuit of the past, to canceling this moment altogether. And perhaps Yoshi had considered ending things between us, too; I still didn’t know if this was the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end. I felt suddenly shy. When he saw me he smiled, held up one hand to wave. I wove through the current of other passengers and put my arm around him, kissed him quickly.
“You’re here,” I said.
“I made it,” he agreed.
We got his bag and walked out of the terminal, talking too quickly about the most mundane things: his trip, the weather, the history of my father’s golden car. I drove out of the city and back over the familiar roads, pointing out landmarks; Yoshi remarked on the wideness of the car seats and the expansive countryside, fields and farms in every direction. The dark green highway signs for one town after another flashed by: Watkins Glen, Corning, Elmira. I told Yoshi about the George East-man House, which housed the International Museum of Photography and Film, and about Mark Twain, who’d lived in Elmira, his octagonal study with its fireplace and many windows, like a freestanding cupola, now on the campus of Elmira College.
“What do you think?” I asked when we got close to the exit for The Lake of Dreams. “Are you tired? I could take you to the house and you could sleep. Or we could stop and walk around the village for a while.”
“I’m tired, but I know I won’t sleep,” Yoshi said. “Show me around. I’ll just walk until I can’t anymore.”
So I parked. We strolled through the village and stopped at the bank, which was open on Saturday mornings. My mother looked up from the papers on her desk and stood, smiling, to shake Yoshi’s hand. She liked him right away, I could tell by the way she lingered in the conversation. She promised to be home early from work. Then we got ice-cream cones and sat in the park, watching sailboats skim across the lake, and Yoshi told me more about his trip to the island, pulling photos up on his camera, carefully skirting the issue of work, of the fact that we were both as adrift in the world as those boats were on the water. Skirting, too, the gaps that had opened up between us in these past two weeks. Yoshi lay back on the grass and dozed a little, and I walked along the seawall. The
house Rose had first lived in was across the street, a narrow Victorian with lacy trim. Iris had been born in that house; there was the garden where she’d made her dolls of hollyhocks. I glanced at Yoshi, dozing in the sun with his arms clasped behind his head, so familiar, and yet containing a universe of history and perceptions that I could never know.
When Yoshi woke up, we walked down to the pier, but though the Fearful Symmetry was tethered and bobbing on the water, neither Blake nor Avery were there, and so we walked on. I pointed out Dream Master rising from the edge of the outlet, imposing. For me it had always been a symbol of my family history, and even though its cracked cornices and need of tuckpointing were clearly visible, seeing things through Yoshi’s eyes did what even my years away had not been able to accomplish: it was a building, nothing more.
“Your grandfather built it?” he asked.
“Great-grandfather. He was Rose’s brother. They came to this country together.”
“Ah. That must have been hard.”
“I think it was. It was hard for Rose, anyway.”
Yoshi nodded. “My mother talks about the loneliness she felt when she first moved to California. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the United States. Just that no matter how long she stayed here, it never truly felt like home. Maybe that’s why she and my father have been so willing to move every few years.”
“Well, it is lonely, isn’t it, being by yourself in a new country? At least your mother had a phone. Rose and Joseph had letters that took three weeks to arrive, and no money.”
We walked on, stopping at The Green Bean to have some coffee. It wasn’t crowded, so we got a table right by the water. I went to look for Avery, and when I couldn’t find her, I left a note of apology in the kitchen, folded and taped to the stainless-steel fridge. A flock of ducks, a mother with her babies, floated by us, traveling down the outlet past the glassworks, where tourists were once again lined up waiting at the door. I didn’t let myself think of Keegan handling fire inside, or the glass wavering and growing like a living thing. The ducks went on their way, floating and swimming with the current. They could follow this outlet to the Erie Canal, travel all the way to Buffalo, and beyond. But the place they passed first was the dock of the glassworks, where I’d climbed into Keegan’s boat with such a feeling of anticipation just two days before.
“Yoshi,” I said. He looked up smiling, and I glanced away. By the time I looked back I could tell from his face—suddenly serious, so braced for bad news—that he knew something was wrong. I told him quickly that Keegan was the person I’d been dating when my father died, that I’d gone out on the boat with him, that I’d kissed him twice since I’d been here and stirred up the unfinished past, but that in the end I couldn’t go forward, because it wasn’t right.
“You mean morally right?” Yoshi asked. “Are you saying you’d see him if you broke up with me?”
“No. No, I mean it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t the right thing to do. I got confused, that’s all, being back here, and seeing him again, and you were so far away. I’m so sorry, Yoshi. I was off balance. I’ve been off balance for a long time. You know that’s true. Maybe since we went to Japan. This was something I had to settle from the past. And now I have.”
He didn’t answer right away. He folded his arms and looked off across the water, keeping his emotions to himself. I tried to imagine how I would feel if the situation were reversed, and found that I was scared. Always before, I was the one to break things off. I was never the one who got hurt. But it was possible that this could happen now.
“Yoshi? I’m really sorry.”
He looked at me then, waved one hand. “I can’t talk about it,” he said. “I’m so tired. I feel like I’m falling through space.”
The water flowed by; we waited for our order. It seemed best not to break the silence. As the waitress brought us coffee and cinnamon bread, I had a flash of insight that seemed, on the surface, to have nothing to do with anything, but went back to the drive we’d made that morning, the green exit signs flashing past: Canandaigua, Seneca Falls, Corning, and Elmira; back to just yesterday, to the letters I still carried in my purse.
And I feel glad to know that the famous author who once lived down the street was born and died in the same light beneath which I once stood, dreaming that the world would shift and change, or even end.
Elmira, home to Mark Twain, who was born as Halley’s Comet passed over in 1835, and died in 1910, when it passed over once again.
I took out my phone and did a search for the white pages in Elmira. And there she was, just like anyone else listed in the phone book: Stone, Iris J.
“What are you doing?” Yoshi asked.
His tone was normal; maybe we’d just carry on and everything would be okay. I moved my chair over so he could see the screen. “Yoshi, look at this. It’s Iris. I found her. She’s in Elmira.”
And then I explained the essence of the story, how Rose had left her daughter and yet followed her from afar, how I’d found the letters. How Iris might not know about Rose at all, or about the windows, or about her mother’s extraordinary life.
“Are you going to call?”
“Do you think I should?”
“Why not?”
“Right, you’re right—why not?”
Still, I had to enter the numbers four different times before I could bring myself to press SEND. It might be the wrong person, or if it was the right Iris Stone, she might not want to talk. She’d be ninety-five years old, after all; she might not remember, or it might be such a shock that she’d collapse, or she just might hang up. But all the time I was thinking of Iris, I was also hesitating because of what it might mean for me to find her. It was like standing on a threshold, a door in the world that would open into a place you’d never expected to be, a place from which you couldn’t return. Welcome or unwelcome, knowledge was something you could never undo.
“What are you waiting for?” Yoshi asked.
“I don’t know. It’s just a little unsettling, that’s all. I don’t know what I’ll find.”
He shook his head. “Is it at all possible you won’t call in the end?” he asked. “Could you imagine finding her like this and never getting in touch?”
I laughed, glad for his calm, pragmatic view. “No. Not really.”
“So why wait? What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t—that was the problem. It wasn’t so much about finding Iris as it was about finding out whatever she might reveal about my family. Still, I pressed the final button. I let the phone ring. Six times, then seven. No answering machine, apparently. I was about to hang up, both disappointed and relieved, when a low voice spoke across the wires.
“This better not be a solicitor,” she said, severely. “You got me out of the bath.”
“Don’t you have an answering machine?” I asked, waving my hand at Yoshi’s quizzical look.
“Who is this?”
I took a deep breath. “You don’t know me,” I began.
“Good-bye, then. I’m not buying anything.”
“Look, please, don’t hang up, okay? It’s important. I’m not selling anything, I promise.”
“Well? What is it, then?”
“My name is Lucy Jarrett,” I said in a great rush. “My father was Martin and his father was Joseph and so was his grandfather. I have an idea that we might be related.”
There was a silence so long that I wondered if we’d been disconnected, or if the shock of my call had been so much that she’d collapsed after all.
“Hello?” I said. “Mrs. Stone, are you all right?”
“I’m quite fine,” came the crisp reply.
“Good. I’m so sorry to call out of the blue. I know it must be a shock.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lucy Jarrett.”
“And how old are you, Lucy Jarrett?”
“Twenty-nine. Thirty in October.”
“I see. Twenty
-nine and thirty in October. Well, let me tell you this, Lucy Jarrett. I’m not interested in my roots. I cut my ties, do you understand? Long ago. Long before you were born. It’s not personal. But I’m going to hang up now, and I don’t want you to be calling me again. Do you understand me? Am I clear?”
“Yes, very clear, but please—let me give you my number. Because I have some information about Rose Jarrett. Maybe you knew her as Rose Westrum. That’s who I want to talk about, when you’re ready. If you’re ready, I should say. About Rose.”
There was a long silence then, and when she spoke I had the sense that her voice was trembling a little, though that might have been the connection.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
I took a deep breath and glanced at Yoshi, who was watching me intently, as if he didn’t know me, his expression so tight and pained that I knew he must be thinking about Keegan. “I found some letters,” I said. “They are letters written to you. From Rose, who knew you from the time you were very small.”
There was a silence.
“Give me your telephone number,” she said.
I did, and after repeating it once she hung up without saying good-bye, leaving me with a vast silence and a pounding heart.
“What happened?” Yoshi asked.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, put the phone down on the table. “She’s the right person. She recognized Rose’s name, and at least she took my number. I’ll just have to wait and see if she calls back.”
“I think she’ll call back,” Yoshi said. “She’ll want to know what you’re talking about.”
I nodded. “How are you doing?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Lucy. I mean, I never expected to get here and find this.”
“I didn’t want to tell you on the phone. But actually, I didn’t mean that. I meant, are you tired?”
“Not really, no. I started to fade awhile ago, but I think I’ve got a second wind. I’m good for a few hours.”