The Lake House Caretaker – Part 2: The East Room

The east room was colder than the rest of the house, with dust sheets over the furniture and a long window that looked straight out over the water. Owen opened the shutters slowly, and the grey light fell across the floor in pale bars.

Paintings leaned against every wall. Lake scenes, mostly, painted in soft, careful layers: the mist, the herons, the far fells in every season. A sketchbook lay open on the desk, its pages filled with small, quick studies of hands and boats and a man rowing a sheep across the water.

"That's my father," said Owen softly, touching the page. "With the sheep. She drew it the summer she was twelve."

Anya stood very still. The sketches were brilliant, honest, full of a love for the place that she recognised at once.

"She was very good," she said.

"She was better than good," said Owen. "She was the one who got out. She went to Edinburgh, and she never came back for longer than a weekend. And then she came back here for her last winter, and she painted this window every day, and never finished the last picture."

Anya turned to the easel by the window. A blank canvas stood there, primed and waiting, with a single pencil line sketched across the top: the shore of the lake, unfinished.

"Can I finish it?" she asked, very quietly.

Owen looked at the canvas, then at her.

"Yes," he said. "But only if you let me stand here while you do it. I'd like to see her finish it through someone else's hands."

They worked through the afternoon, the light moving slowly across the water. Anya painted the far shore, and Owen told her about the boats that used to tie up there, and the fishermen who knew the weather by the colour of the fells. She added the mist and the herons. He added a tiny figure in the corner of the canvas, a man in a green cap, rowing alone.

When they stepped back, the painting was finished, and the room felt warm for the first time.

"She'd have hated it," said Owen, laughing wetly.

"Why?"

"Because it's better than hers," he said, and his eyes shone.

Anya laughed too, and then sobered. "Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Yes."

"Would you let me stay until the spring, and finish the rest of the room, and keep painting the lake while you fix the boiler? Not for the job. For the window, and the herons, and the man who won't tell me about the east room until I've earned it."

Owen's face softened. He crossed the room, slowly, and took her hand, his thumb brushing her knuckles.

"Yes," he said. "But I'd like to ask you something back."

"Anything."

"Would you kiss me here, in her room, in front of her last painting? I think she'd approve, once she stopped being cross about my boiler."

Anya's breath caught. "Yes," she said. "And if I say stop, we'll go and sit by the lake until the herons come back."

"Good," said Owen, and leaned in.

He kissed her gently, his hand coming up to rest against her cheek, rough and warm. The kiss was quiet and certain, tasting of tea and cold air. Outside, the lake was silver under the last of the light, and somewhere far off, a heron lifted slowly from the shallows.

When they parted, both of them were smiling, a little tearful.

"Green?" he asked.

"Green," said Anya. "Very green. Now let's go and see if the boiler survives the evening, Owen. I think it's your turn to be useful."

"That's very rude," said Owen, grinning, and took her hand as they walked out of the east room and down the stairs, into the warm light of the lake house at dusk.