Callista stood by the window in the door of her father's cottage where, twenty years ago, she had been standing, watching the gulls swoop and cry at each other in a never-ending game of follow-the-leader. When this became tiresome, she glanced at the beach lining the lake, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man she saw come by sometimes. He was old with a long, white beard that wagged down to his waist and whiskery eyebrows that hid the piercing intelligence of his eyes. She had seen him first the day Simon had walked out and thrown the engagement ring he had bought in the sand. The man had watched it all in solemn detachment, tying off his boat with a seam of reef-knots, his eyes shining in the stinging brightness of the sun on the sand. The ring was on the wooden step of the door the next morning.

Callista left the window and walked with small, child-like steps into the livingroom. A plaid sofa sagged in the middle of the room and a dusty iron bookshelf, where she kept all of her father's work, sat in a corner. Across the room, under the large, shuttered window, lay an old coffee table. One of the legs was missing and a pile of books, including an atlas and her family's genealogy, had been placed under the table to keep it steady. On top of the table lay a portrait of her great-grandfather who, her father used to tell her, had been a very wealthy man. Callista had spent many a lonely hour of her cottage childhood at this very table, trying to decipher the scrall at the lower right-hand corner of the painting. Her father had said it was because of this man that the two of them were so well off, because of him that he could carry on his research. But Huntington's was a mysterious disease with a well-hidden cure, and her father hadn't been able to get his revenge for the death of his wife before his time had come. He used to say it was a great disrespect to her great-grandfather that they had nowhere to put the painting but the top of a coffee table. Callista had once suggested a spot over the fireplace, but her father had said no.

Callista walked slowly back to the door. She watched as the old man toddled along the beach, stooping every once in a while to pick stones and seashells from the surf and put them in a little bucket he held in his left hand. She lost track of the time, unable to tell when she finally stirred from her position. The man had gone home long ago.

Callista turned away from the window in the door and paced into the kitchen, passing through the livingroom which was now bathed in sunset. She rummaged in a cupboard and produced a black kettle. Going to the refrigerator, she took out a bottle of drinking water. She filled the kettle more than would fill one mug, not wanting to have to use the water at the bottom where the white paint of the kettle flaked off, revealing the natural gray of the kettle underneath.

The kettle was a little heavy, and, as always, Callista had to be careful not to slosh any water as she walked to the stove. She didn't want to have to clean it up. She imagined the old man stooping over to clean up water as easily as he stooped to pick up shells.

Callista returned to the livingroom and fell heavily onto the couch. The sunset created fiery hues on the floor and across Callista's hands as they lay in front of her. She wondered for a moment what she looked like under the skin, in the soul. If she could choose, her hands would look this way, as if a fire were inside of them. She could remember telling thoughts like these to her father when she was younger, but he had scolded her, saying that she should focus her attentions on more important things, like schooling or working with her hands. When she had become a writer, he had stopped talking to her altogether.

She couldn't remember when her father had gotten cancer of the colon, but it had been after she'd had her first book published. After this, Callista hadn't seen him as often in his usual places: in the market, or in line at the bank. When she did see him, though, he was gaunt and pale with a hollow gaze, as if he hardly slept or ate. Callista guessed that he worked every day and even sometimes into the night, like a man possessed, researching her mother's killer. She had shaken her head and sighed. Then, she hadn't seen that he was trying to beat the cancer by ignoring it as he had ignored everything he didn't understand, and therefore feared.

He had died exactly four months after her twenty-first birthday with a pen in one hand and a notepad in the other. He had been writing a letter to her, but had died before he'd gotten past the first few words. He had written down many variations of the same introduction: "Dear Callista", "Dear daughter", "Dear family member", but each of them had been crossed out.

The tea kettle began to whistle. Callista hurried into the kitchen and put the kettle onto another burner. Some water spilled onto the hot element, but was quickly reduced to tiny, sizzling bubbles before she could even draw breath for a gasp.

Callista reached her hand into a drawer and pulled out her father's hammer and a nail. Grabbing the stool that stood beside the refrigerator and the portrait of her great-grandfather from off the coffee table, she went into the sitting room, in front of the fireplace. She slid the stool onto the floor with a quite jostle, and then stood upon it, carrying the hammer and nail with her. She put the nail into the wall above the fireplace.

The portrait looked good up there.