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replies. “Perhaps I can help?”
    I don’t want to speak of who I am to anyone but my sisters.
    â€œWill Vivienne be home soon?”
    He leans down and touches the dog’s head. “I don’t expect her back until this evening. And Alison and Walter are in Wairoa so they won’t be home until late. What do you want with them?”
    â€œI’ve seen one of their mother’s paintings,” I tell him. “I was wondering if there were any available to buy.”
    It is a lie, but I do need a painting or two for my office wall. Although I’m not sure I would want a painting by my father’s spurned first wife.
    His jaw moves into a smile, showing a set of even white teeth. “Come in,” he says. “I think Vivienne has some of her mother’s pieces in the hall.”
    He stands to one side and puts out his hand, brushing my shoulder as I pass. I flinch involuntarily.
    â€œThey are here somewhere,” he says, as I stand blinking in a large hallway. “But I cannot recall where.”
    I walk up the hallway, looking at the artworks on display. “I can’t see Rose’s signature on any of these,” I say.
    Still wearing his dark glasses, he seems to gaze right through me. I start to feel uncomfortable.
    â€œPerhaps they are in the studio.” He walks past me and opens a door to the outside. “Follow me.”
    He leaves the house and crosses the lawn to a gate beyond. The dog paces silently beside him.
    He fumbles with the gate. I look back at the house. We are now on the northern side, and as with the farmhouse below, there is a wide veranda built for the sun. The house looks beautiful from this angle as well, with its deep windows, gray-painted wood, white walls, and the profusion of flowers bordering the deck. There is a scent of lavender in the air.
    â€œCome,” Christopher says and so I follow him through the gate and into a paddock.
    Now the air smells more of rural countryside; grass and earth with a hint of dung, a waft of decay.
    My cell phone rings and I stop to answer it. “Hello? This is Lin.”
    â€œWhere are you?” asks Sally’s voice.
    â€œI’m at a place called Ngatirua,” I reply. “In Hawke’s Bay.”
    Christopher has paused to wait for me.
    â€œThat’s a bloody long drive,” she says. “Anyway, I’ve asked the gay guys for dinner tonight. You okay for that?”
    â€œSure,” I reply. We say good-bye and hang up.
    â€œSorry,” I say.
    Christopher is standing facing the paddock but turns back to me, his gaze fixing just above my forehead. “Actually, I don’t know if there are any of Rose’s paintings in the studio either,” he says. “I can’t find them for you. You see, I am blind.”
    â€œBlind?” I feel foolish for not having realized his odd manner was due to lack of sight. “I am sorry, I didn’t realize.”
    â€œYou should come back when my wife is here.” He turns and walks back to the house, with me trailing along behind.
    â€œSo this was the family farm?”
    â€œRose’s parents’ farm, yes. Vivienne and her sister inherited it from their grandparents.”
    â€œNice that they still live so close to each other.”
    â€œThey have always been close,” he says. “Since they were children and their mother killed herself.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œVivienne said that Rose was devastated when her husband left her for another woman. And when he had a child with the new woman, Rose broke down completely. Vivienne found her body.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œVivienne has never been able to forget her mother’s agony. She hated her father. Never mentions his name.” Christopher says this as he ushers me back to the front door and stands at the entrance, waiting for me to go away.
    â€œWell, thank you for letting me take a look. I’ll call,” I reply.
    My