I painted for hours.
Nothing good. Nothing worth keeping. Just colors on canvas, shapes that didn't mean anything, my hands moving because they needed to move. The light through the windows shifted from afternoon to evening, golden to grey, and I barely noticed. This was the only place my brain went quiet. The only place I didn't have to think.
By the time I stopped, my fingers were stiff and streaked with blue and the room had gone dark around me.
I cleaned up slowly. Washed the brushes in the small sink in the corner. Covered the canvas even though there was nothing on it worth protecting. Stood at the window and watched the last bit of light disappear behind the trees.
Somewhere in the house, I heard voices. My mother laughing. Richard saying something I couldn't make out. The distant clatter of dishes being set on a table.
Dinner.
I wasn't hungry, but I went anyway because disappearing would raise questions I didn't want to answer.
The dining room was warm when I walked in. Candles lit. Food already laid out. Richard stood when he saw me, pulling out a chair, and I let him because fighting it felt like too much effort.
"There she is," he said. "Claire said you were painting. Lost track of time?"
"Something like that."
My mother smiled at me from across the table. Soft. Concerned. Still thinking about the café, probably. Still wondering what had made me cry.
Asher was already seated, still ignoring me.
Richard carried the conversation. Asked about our trip to town. Asked what I thought of the village. Asked if I'd found anything I liked in the shops. I answered in short sentences, polite but empty, and he didn't seem to notice the difference.
My mother watched me. I could feel her eyes on me even when I wasn't looking.
"The painting room has good light," Richard said. "I had it set up years ago for Elizabeth. She used to paint too."
The table went quiet.
I glanced at Asher without meaning to. His jaw had tightened, just slightly, the only sign that he'd heard.
"She was talented," Richard continued, his voice softer now. "Not professionally trained or anything, but she had an eye for color. Used to say it was the only thing that made sense to her when everything else felt chaotic."
I understood that. More than I wanted to admit.
"I'd love to see some of her work sometime," my mother said carefully. "If that's alright."
"Of course. There are a few pieces in storage. I'll have them brought out." Richard smiled, but there was something sad underneath it. "She would have liked you, Claire. Both of you."
Asher pushed back from the table. "I'm done."
He didn't wait for a response. Just picked up his plate, took it to the kitchen, and was gone before anyone could say anything.
Richard sighed. "He doesn't like talking about her."
"That's understandable," my mother said.
"It's been six years. I keep hoping it'll get easier for him, but..." He shook his head. "He was so close to her. They had this bond I could never quite reach. When she died, part of him went with her."
I stared at my plate. Thought about Asher's face when Richard mentioned his mother's name.
Maybe we had more in common than I thought. Both of us carrying things we couldn't talk about. Both of us pretending to be fine when we weren't.
After dinner, I helped clear the table even though Margaret insisted she could handle it. My mother and Richard disappeared into his study, their voices low and warm behind the closed door.
I went back to my room. Tried to read. Couldn't focus. Tried to sleep. Couldn't do that either.
At midnight, I gave up.
The kitchen was dark when I got there. I didn't bother turning on the lights, just made my way to the tap by the glow of the moon through the windows.
"You don't sleep."
I nearly dropped the glass.
He was sitting at the island. Same spot as before. Phone face-down this time, no light from the screen. Just him in the darkness, watching me.
"Neither do you," I said once my heart stopped trying to escape my chest.
"I live here."
"So do I. Apparently."
He didn't say anything else. Just watched as I filled my glass, as I stood there awkwardly trying to decide whether to leave or stay.
I should leave. That was the smart thing. Go back to my room, close the door, stop trying to understand someone who clearly didn't want to be understood.
But my feet didn't move.
"Your dad mentioned your mom tonight," I said. "At dinner."
His expression didn't change, but something in the air did. A tension that hadn't been there before.
"I know."
"Is that why you left?"
"I left because I was done eating."
A lie. We both knew it. But I wasn't going to push. I knew what it felt like to have someone dig into wounds that weren't ready to be opened.
"The painting room," I said instead. "He said she used to paint there."
"She did."
"Is it weird? That I'm using it?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that I thought he wasn't going to answer.
"No," he said finally. "She would have hated it sitting empty."
I didn't know what to say to that. It felt like he'd given me something without meaning to. A small piece of himself that he usually kept hidden.
"I should go back to bed," I said.
"You should."
But neither of us moved.
The silence stretched between us, heavy and strange and not entirely uncomfortable. I could hear the house settling around us. The tick of a clock somewhere down the hall. The distant hum of the refrigerator.
"Goodnight," I said.
"Goodnight."
I left. Walked back to my room without looking over my shoulder. But I could feel him still sitting there in the dark, and I wondered if he felt as unsettled as I did.
The next day, I painted.
Real painting this time. Not just moving colors around to keep my hands busy. I started with the background—dark blues and greys, layers building on top of each other until the canvas had depth. I didn't know what it was going to be yet. I never did, at the start. The image would come later, rising up out of the colors like something that had been there all along, waiting to be found.
I worked through the morning. Skipped lunch. Kept going until the light started to change and my shoulders ached from standing in the same position for hours.
After, I went back to my room. Tried the sleeping thing again. Failed again.
At some point, I got up and went to the window.
He was on the basketball court.
I could see him from here, a dark figure against the lit concrete. Alone. Shooting hoops in the cold, over and over, the ball arcing through the air and dropping through the net with a sound I could almost hear.
I watched him move. There was something hypnotic about it. The way his body turned, the way his arms extended, the easy grace of someone who had done this a thousand times before.
He stopped.
Turned toward the house.
I stepped back from the window, my heart suddenly pounding. Had he seen me? The room was dark, the glass probably just reflected the night sky back at him.
But I stayed away from the window after that. Just in case.