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River Road before acres of forest formed Pine Point, the craggy isthmus near Whistling Falls. It was the only inhabited home on River Road. Stiff brown grass was finally giving way to green. On the river, fog rose off the last of the ice remnants and moved in wisps around the birch grove. How silent it was, how silent it always was! There were bird sounds, water sounds. Sometimes the rustling of dry leaves. Sometimes rain. Once or twice an hour, trains rumbled across the river.
    “Asa inherited this house after his mother died, which was two years ago,” Dez said, holding the back door open for Abby. “But I still haven’t lost the sense that I’m living in someone else’s space.”
    Inside, Abby shook her head at the sight of the parlor, dark and full of wood and china bric-a-brac. “Oh, toots. It’s awful! Why don’t you throw it all out?” Along the west wall sat three claret-colored velvet stools that looked like kneelers in a Catholic confessional. Abby gave one a kick. “What the hell are these?”
    A jumble that had belonged to Mrs. Spaulding. “Asa’s one of those people who really doesn’t like change,” Dez said. “But I have to say he was generous about this.” She opened the door to the studio, as bright as the parlor was dark. “It’s got the steadiest light in the house.”
    Abby stepped inside, her eyes taking the measure of the workspace—the three easels and the long table cluttered with stretching supplies, jars of linseed and poppy oils, tins of paints and china plates, brushes, badger tools. The wooden shelves that bowed with the weight of books and photographs, and supported the drying racks below.
    One easel contained a finished portrait of two sisters from Worcester, nieces of the New York Pullmans. A rare commission she had managed to snag, Dez said, although whether she would ever collect payment was another story. Twice, the mother had called in to pick it up, but money was tight, even for people who had plenty of it. The mother wanted to besure the portrait was exactly right, and she was picky. First, she said that the color of Marjorie’s dress wasn’t quite right, that in real life the velvet was a much darker green. And then the younger girl decided she wanted her doll painted into the portrait.
    Abby gave the two sisters a long look. “I can tell exactly what kinds of girls these are; you’ve managed to capture that, haven’t you? They’re spoiled, but they’re not bad girls, are they?” She turned her attention to the other, new canvas: the squared-off view of grass. Seeing it anew, with fresh eyes, Dez’s enthusiasm for it sank a bit. It wasn’t quite right. The blades of grass needed to challenge the canvas’s small size, appear to
spill
out of the boundaries. They weren’t quite tall enough. Something.
    It was an awful feeling—discontent. Especially when it happened in the middle of a social time. Because all you wanted to do was get back to work and try to make it right, but you couldn’t. You had to put it from your mind. Either that, or become some kind of eccentric who did whatever she wanted, regardless of who was around, and then what kind of life did you have?
    “I remember this,” Abby said, reaching for a small framed portrait of Dez. “Miss Farrell did this during demonstration. She liked you.”
    “I liked her.” And she liked that depiction of herself, the mix of chrome red and cadmium yellow wax crayon for hair forced somewhat unsuccessfully into the wavy style everyone else had worn so effortlessly. Harsh black strokes illustrated the rest: her lean body, her too-broad nose, her way of biting her lower lip as she worked, bent forward from the waist.
    “She was a tough old bird.” Abby knelt down and looked through the drying racks. She pulled out the low-key study of their old home that Dez painted when Jacob suggested she attempt to paint the senses. What are your favorite smells? he had asked.
Wood smoke in November
,
wind that is full