The smell came first: cedar, dust, pine, and beneath it the warm dry scent of a place closed too long but built from honest wood. My grandfather kept cedar blocks in every drawer and closet. He said they kept moths away, which was true, but I always thought he liked the smell because it belonged to an older, harder life he trusted more than he trusted explanations.
The flashlight moved over the room and everything was where he had left it. The plaid couch with the middle cushion worn lower than the others. The crooked bookshelf he built himself, still lined with paperbacks cracked from years of rereading.
The kitchen table where we played cards while he made hot chocolate too sweet and pretended not to cheat. His coat still hung by the door. His boots still sat under the bench as if he had only stepped outside for firewood and might return before the kettle boiled.
And the paintings. Nine of them, still hanging exactly where they had always hung. All landscapes. All his. The lake in June mist. Birch trees in October. The stone bridge up the road. A winter scene above the fireplace, the frozen lake under a low gray sky.