Page 57 of Something Like Winter

out. Tim picked the lock and slipped inside the office, locking the door

after him. There weren’t many places to look. Aside from a computer

and desk, the office was furnished with filing cabinets stuffed with

paperwork. Tim searched those first, finding the section with the current

year written on it. Soon he had a fistful of checks, but he only sifted

through them until he found Eric’s. Then he folded it and put it in his

back pocket.

He thought about taking the check to the bathroom and burning it,

but he felt Eric was owed more than just his money back. Hopping in his

car, Tim headed for the outskirts of Austin.

* * * * *

Tim found himself not in the luxurious front room with its burgundy

and gold-threaded couches, but deeper in Eric’s home in what was

introduced as the living room. One wall was dominated by bookshelves

of different widths, between them equally tall and narrow windows that

also varied in breadth. A couch and a number of armchairs filled the rest

of the space, with thick carpets cast seemingly at random across the

hardwood floors.

“Do you recognize it?” Eric asked, nodding to the shelves. “This

room is also inspired by one of my favorite paintings.”

Tim was at a total loss in regard to both the right answer and the

situation. He had imagined speaking to Eric at his front door, but the

older man had greeted him with enthusiasm, practically dragging him

inside when they shook hands.

“I don’t know,” Tim said, grasping for anything. He considered the

windows, how lights in the yard lit them from behind like stained glass.

“It sort of reminds me of a forest, how trees form dark lines and the

empty gaps between them glow.”

“Exactly!” Eric gently turned him by the shoulder so Tim faced the

opposite wall. There hung a painting of a woman riding through the