Chapter 3 - The Blue Glass
By seven o'clock, Reed House had transformed into a shimmering, high-society gala.
Down in the grand ballroom, eighty guests in black-tie attire moved beneath the crystal chandeliers. Violinists from the Charleston Symphony played soft, classical suites in the corner, their notes floating over the hum of refined conversation, the clinking of champagne flutes, and the discreet footfalls of servers carrying silver trays loaded with seared scallops and caviar crostini.
Nathan stood near the center of the room, accepting condolences and polite handshakes from city council members, shipping executives, and museum directors.
“You’re looking well, Nathan,” said Arthur Vance, a senior partner at a local wealth management firm, patting Nathan’s shoulder with practiced warmth. “Abigail would be proud of how you’ve kept the foundation running. Truly.”
“Thank you, Arthur,” Nathan said automatically.
He had recited the phrase twenty times in forty minutes. His smile was fixed, his posture perfect, his mind entirely detached. He looked at these people—people he had known for thirty years—and felt a profound, aching distance. They spoke of Abigail as if she were a lovely painting that had been removed from the wall, a pleasant memory to be acknowledged before returning to discussions regarding real estate tax assessments and municipal bonds.
He excused himself from the group, stepping out through the French doors onto the long brick terrace that overlooked the gardens.
The cool evening air helped clear his head. He walked down the western steps toward the library wing, where the glass-enclosed breakfast porch was lit by two soft copper lanterns.
He looked through the glass.
Lily was sitting at a small round iron table, her feet dangling several inches above the floor. A silver tray sat before her, holding a plate of sliced strawberries, two butter shortbread cookies, and a glass of apple juice in a crystal tumbler that was entirely too heavy for her small hands. Leon, the estate’s sixty-year-old head gardener who often assisted with security during large events, was sitting on a folding chair nearby, watching her draw with a look of quiet amusement on his weathered face.
Nathan pushed open the glass door.
Leon stood immediately. “Mr. Reed.”
“It’s fine, Leon. Thank you. You can take a break near the kitchen.”
Leon nodded, tipping his cap, and walked out into the garden corridor.
Nathan sat down in the chair Leon had vacated.
Lily did not look up immediately. She was deeply absorbed in her work, using a dark blue crayon to cover a large circle on her paper.
“Is that a sun?” Nathan asked gently.
“It’s a moon,” Lily corrected him without stopping her crayon. “A blue moon. Because the golden path went away when the light changed.”
Nathan looked at the paper. It was remarkably detailed for a four-year-old—a jagged line representing the water, a large dark blue moon, and a small figure standing near a window with two purple dots for eyes.
“Are those the birds?” Nathan pointed to two V-shaped marks near the top.
“Those are the gulls,” she said. She finally laid her crayon down and looked at him. “Did you stop crying?”
“I did,” Nathan said. “For now.”
“My mom says crying clears out the dust in your chest.”
Nathan smiled—a real smile this time, small and tired, but genuine. “Your mother has a lot of sayings.”
“She’s very smart,” Lily repeated.
She shifted in her chair, her sneakers bumping against the iron leg of the table. She looked down at the floorboards near the baseboard heater, where a small brass vent let in warm air from the cellar below.
“Look,” she said, pointing a finger down.
“What is it?”
“Something shiny.”
Nathan leaned down, his knee popping slightly in the quiet room. He looked where she was pointing. Deep inside the narrow gap between the mahogany floorboard and the white painted baseboard—a gap no wider than a pencil—something caught the lantern light. It was smooth, dark blue, and wedged tightly against the old iron nail heads.
Nathan went still.
He reached into his waistcoat pocket, pulled out a small silver pocketknife he used for opening mail, and carefully flipped open the small blade. With meticulous, slow movements, he worked the tip of the blade into the crevice, levering the object upward until it popped out onto the polished floor.
He picked it up.
It was a piece of cobalt-blue sea glass, no larger than a coat button, its edges rounded and frosted by years of ocean waves.
Nathan held it in the palm of his hand, his thumb tracing the smooth, cool surface.
Abigail had found it on Sullivan’s Island during the first summer they were married, thirty-four years ago. They had walked three miles along the beach in a sudden July rainstorm, laughing like teenagers, and she had spotted the brilliant blue glass tumbling in the foam near the pier. She had kept it on her nightstand for decades.
When her illness returned two years ago, she had taken up making sea-glass mobiles, stringing together pieces she had collected over a lifetime—amber from Maine, green from the Outer Banks, milky white from the local harbor. She had hung the mobile in the sunroom window so the afternoon light would shine through it.
The blue piece—the most important piece, the piece from Sullivan’s Island—had disappeared during her final week in hospice care. They had searched the room twice, assuming it had fallen into a heat register or been swept away by the night nurses. Eventually, Nathan had given up looking. The empty thread on the mobile had remained bare, a silent, painful reminder of missing things.
Nathan sat on the floor of the breakfast porch, holding the tiny piece of glass, his eyes fixed on his hand.
Lily slid down from her chair and crouched beside him, her small knee touching his suit pants.
“Is that the missing piece?” she asked softly.
Nathan swallowed, his voice barely a breath. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
“It was hiding,” Lily said solemnly. “Sometimes things hide when they don't want to be lost.”
Nathan turned his head to look at her.
The child was staring at the glass with pure, uncluttered understanding. She did not know that the piece of glass represented thirty-four years of marriage, or that its loss had felt like the final, cruel joke of an unforgiving universe. She only knew that something belonged somewhere, and that now it had been found.
“You should put it back,” Lily told him, touching his sleeve with one fingers. “On the mobile thing. So it isn't lonely anymore.”
May you like
Nathan closed his hand around the glass, feeling its solid, cool weight against his skin.
“Yes,” he whispered, looking at her with a clarity he had not felt in seven months. “That is exactly where it belongs.”
