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Leo tilted his head one way, then the other, frowning at the painting. “I can’t evaluate it like this. Stand it up.”

“The paint is wet.”

“Then stand it up carefully.”

Nate could have argued. He didn’t, mostly because Leo was right — flat on its back, the painting looked like nothing, like a man asleep with his eyes open. It needed a wall.

“Let’s put it on the mantel,” he said, and picked it up by the edges.

Leo trailed him to the sitting room, talking the whole way about the angle of the light and what he would do if Nate hadn’t gotten his nose right.

Nate propped the painting on the mantel and stepped back.

“Well?” Nate said.

The talking had stopped.

Leo hung in front of the mantel, very still. Nate waited for complaints about the nose, the color, the hair, anything.

But Leo did not speak for a while.

Then, finally, “I guess it turned out okay.”

“High praise.” Nate exhaled.

“The eyes are good.”

“I had a good model.”

“You had an excellent model.” There was no force behind the words. Leo stayed where he was, looking up at his own face, transfixed. He hovered in front of that painting like it might do something if he stopped watching it.

It wasn’t difficult to understand his fascination. For fifty years, the only proof this man existed had been a cold spot and a bad temper. Now there was a visible representation of him in the house.

Something to remind him of himself.

Something that might remind other people of him too.

“Saturday,” Nate said, “I’ll take it into town. Photos of it, anyway, since the paint won’t be cured. I’ll show it to Diane first, then the diner. Somebody in that room should be old enough to have known you.”

“Saturday,” Leo repeated, still looking at himself.

Nate left him to it.

He really needed to get some dinner anyway.

He ate in peace, by himself, and by the time he turned in, Leo was still examining the painting.

It should have been strange, going to sleep with a dead man standing in the corner of the room, but Nate had gone to sleep with Leo trying to radiate menace next to his pillow. This was nothing in comparison.

“Goodnight,” Nate said.

He got a distracted “mm” for his trouble.

Hours later, he woke for a brief moment to find that Leo hadn’t moved.

He stood in front of the mantel with his arms crossed, looking up at his own face, two versions of the same man silvered by the moon coming through the window.

Nate watched him for a while through half-closed eyes. Then he rolled over and let him keep his vigil in private.