It was a horse, with one leg a little shorter than the others, the face goofy. He held it up; it was just the kind of thing Caroline would make. He patted its clay back and leaned it against the plane so it would stay upright. He took the cloth off the castle. It still needed the roofs for the towers; the pie-shaped pieces were spread out next to it. He looked inside at the room he'd made for Caroline. Why should he finish it now? But how could he not? Mack had sample cans of paint on a shelf under the window near the front door. Some of them were metallic: gold and silver, and a tangerine color almost like Caroline's hair. He opened that one and painted the room with a small brush, bending over, angling his head to see into the corners. “The brush you use is so important,” Mack always said, “the size, the shape.” Sam tried to concentrate on that, the brush, the strokes, the look of the hidden room, instead of Caroline's leaving. The bell jangled over the door behind him, and a woman came in holding a small oval table in her arms.
