Windows Highland Park [hot]: Steel

One April evening, a spring squall tore through Highland Park like a fist. The wind screamed under the eaves. Elena sat on the floor of the dining room, flashlight in hand, listening to the house groan. Then came a sound like a breaking cello string—a sharp, resonant ping from the front parlor.

The first winter was a penance. Frost formed on the inside of the bedroom windows. She woke to her own breath crystallized on the pillowcase. She stuffed rolled-up towels at the sills and burned through three cords of wood in the tiny fireplace. Her neighbors—the ones who still spoke to her after the moving truck blocked the street for two days—called them “Elena’s iceboxes.” steel windows highland park

“That’s the point.”

But Elena didn’t want to replace them. She was a historic preservationist by trade and a fool by nature. She bought the house. One April evening, a spring squall tore through