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
