“Oh?” said Professor Pindar. But for all he had professed to want just this, he seemed less certain about it now.

“You say…” I said slowly. “You say you value the work I do here, and that I don’t need to worry about my position.”

Professor Pindar nodded, making one hand into a visor to shield his eyes. “Yes,” he said, nodding vigorously. “Absolutely.”

“But what…” I said, and I left the blinds then and crossed to the center of the room, “what exactly do I do here?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Would it not be accurate to describe my position as that of a ‘glorified secretary’? And, more importantly, why do you pretend that my father has ‘left the university’? Why is it so difficult for everyone to admit?”

“To admit what?”

But I found that despite it all, even I could not quite pronounce the words. “That there has been a death,” I said, more quietly.

“I’m sorry,” said Professor Pindar. “I didn’t catch that. A death?”

Then I noticed something that had been staring me in the face all along, something I should have noticed a long time ago. It was a heavy black paperweight, crudely carved to resemble a whale, sitting on top of a stack of papers on Professor Pindar’s desk.

Well, of course, I thought, of course he would have such a paperweight. How fitting, after all that talk of fathers, their possessions, and special spots. Was this, I thought, a chuckle rising in my throat, another heirloom?

“I know what you’ve been up to,” I said softly.

“What?” said Professor Pindar.

“What?” I said. “I think you know each other, don’t you, you and Kirstie Johanssen?”

“I’m sorry?”

“This morning,” I said. “From my window.”

My words seemed to be bubbling up all at once, and perhaps not in the right order; I took a breath in, to slow myself.

“This is a nice paperweight,” I said, taking it in my hand.

“Thank you,” said Professor Pindar. “I— Wouldn’t you like to have a seat?”

What a stupid ornament, I thought. Here was a man not content to merely hang an ugly weapon in his office; he had also bought himself a paperweight, in case anyone was in danger of forgetting this fact, that he was descended from New England whalers. What a farce.

“My daughter gave it to me,” he said, looking pained. He stretched out a hand as if to take it back, but I did not return it to him. It was heavy and smooth, a pleasure to hold in my hand. Not just a pleasure, I thought, drifting away from the room, from Professor Pindar, from the sunlight that now poured robustly into the room; a feeling more fundamental, as if something I’d lost without knowing it had finally been returned.