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His expression changed from confusion to fear. “Someone sure copied the way I paint, or at least tried to. But these are flat, lifeless. The guy who did them must’ve been an accountant or something.” It took Kiernan a moment to realize that the hollow, nervous sound he made was meant to be a laugh.
    “No one copied you, Garrett. No one’s been here but us, right?”
    “No one we invited, hon.” He glanced fearfully from his wife to Kiernan. “Forgers don’t knock at the front door. Anyone could creep round to my studio during the night.” His hands were shaking.
    Maureen’s face was bloodless. “Crept in? Painted those canvases and left them in the house?”
    “They’re not worth taking away,” Garrett said, almost inaudibly.
    “Garrett, you know you painted all of these …”
    “No!” he cried. “Only one. I’ve only painted one. You know that.” He cringed away from Maureen. Horrified, Kiernan found herself taking a step backward.
    “Those things don’t belong there!” he shouted. ‘Those walls must be bare. Nothing can be on them.” He grabbed one of the canvases and flung it to the floor. The frame cracked. He tore and ripped at the canvas itself, and when it didn’t give, flung the whole thing into the empty fireplace.
    Maureen swallowed hard. For several moments she stood unmoving, then walked stiffly over to Garrett, who was staring out of the window, his body at attention. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Aren’t the redwoods magnificent?”
    Kiernan moved beside the couple in time to see the fear wash out of his face, leaving it momentarily blank. There was no trace of his earlier anxiety, she noted. He turned abruptly away from the window, looked at Kiernan and grinned. “Hello. I’m Garrett Brant. How nice of you to come all the way out here to see us.”
    Kiernan gasped. Mechanically, she extended a hand.
    Garrett glanced quickly, questioningly, at Maureen and when she said nothing turned back to Kiernan, still smiling. “Now where is it I know you from?”
    Kiernan swallowed hard. “Do you remember my name?”
    His smile quivered but held. He took her hand in both of his. “Why don’t you tell me again. You know how painters are, all picture, no memory space for words. You’re … ?”
    “Kiernan O’Shaughnessy.”
    “Kiernan! What a wonderful name, all green glades and fast-moving water. Kiernan, it was good of you to come. Maureen’s not as fond of seclusion as I am. She’s a city girl. She wouldn’t have chosen the woods for a vacation.” He smiled. “But we’re only here for two weeks, right, Maureen?”
    Maureen gritted her teeth, then nodded. In the moment before she spoke, Kiernan watched her remold her face, squeezing out the emotion, glazing it with pleasantness. “You’ve got work to do, Gar. Don’t let us keep you.”
    “Okay. You ladies have fun, now.” He caught Kiernan’s eye and smiled. “See you later, uh—. Don’t you dare leave without saying good-bye.”
    Maureen walked him into the yard. Looking at them, Kiernan found it hard to imagine they could ever have been lovers, ever have been anything but mother and son.

6
    G ARRETT B RANT LOOKED AT the redwoods beyond his studio window. He smiled happily. The trees … just like they were when I was a boy here. Almost as if time had stopped. He moved closer to the window. There’s the scar in the bark, where my swing hit it—
    He heard the door creak behind him and whipped around. The wall of photographs caught his attention. Odd that the edges should curl so soon. I just put them up when Maureen and I got here. His gaze shifted to the snapshots of the mud flats of Cook Inlet. He shivered despite the heat, remembering the stories of those deceptively solid stretches of land which, when the tide was out, were covered with algae—green, chartreuse, golden-brown. Thanksgiving colors. He shivered again. He no longer thought of the woman the mud had sucked down, he felt her terror, recognized