Page 17 of Rainshadow Road

“You didn’t have to. It’s the way you are.”

“You’re actually trying to blame me for what you did?”

“We joke about what a control freak you are,” her sister said ruthlessly. “Kevin said you couldn’t handle it if he left a sock on the floor. You’re so busy controlling everyone and everything, you never stop to notice what’s right in your face. I can’t help it if Kevin wanted me more. I don’t push him the way you do. And in the future you’re going to keep losing boyfriends if you don’t change.”

“I didn’t need your help in losing this one,” Lucy said unsteadily, and hung up before her sister could reply.

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.

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